
Copyright]^?. 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSnV 



^ott\)iat6ttm MntitttBi^ 



THE N. W. HARRIS LECTURES 
FOR 1908 



were founded in 1906 through the generosity of Mr. 
Norman Wait Harris of Chicago, and are to be given 
annually. The purpose of the lecture foundation is, 
as expressed by the donor, "to stimulate scientific 
research of the highest type and to bring the results 
of such research before the students and friends of 
Northwestern University, and through them to the 
world. By the term ' scientific research ' is meant 
scholarly investigation into any department of human 
thought or effort without limitation to research in the 
so-called natural sciences, but with a desire that such 
investigation should be extended to cover the whole 
field of human knowledge." 



UNIVERSITY 
ADMINISTRATION 



BY 

CHAKLES W. ELIOT 




BOSTON AND NEW YORK 

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 

^Jje jRftjCT^tie ^n^4 Cambridge 

1908 



LISHARY of CONGRESS I 

Two Copies Received 

NOV 9 1908 

Copyrifftit Entry 






k\ 



COPYRIGHT, 1908, BY CHARLES W. ELIOT 
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 



Published November ^ /go8 



CONTENTS 

1.. UNIVERSITY TRUSTEES 1 

II. AN INSPECTING AND CONSENTING BODY 

— ALUMNI INFLUENCE 44 

in. THE UNIVERSITY FACULTY 81 

IV. THE ELECTIVE SYSTEM 131 

V. METHODS OF INSTRUCTION 174 

.VI. SOCLA.L ORGANIZATION — THE PRESIDENT 

— GENERAL ADMINISTRATION 214 

INDEX 255 



UNIVERSITY ADMINISTRATION 



UNIVERSITY TRUSTEES 

The principal governing board of an Ameri- 
can university is most commonly called the 
trustees or the regents. In endowed institu- 
tions the members of the board usually serve 
for life ; but in State and city institutions they 
ordinarily serve for a limited term of years, 
being reeligible term after term. The number 
of members in such boards varies very much, 
being sometimes as small as seven or nine, 
and often as large as twenty to forty, and 
even larger. The endowed institutions have a 
decided advantage over the institutions sup- 
ported by taxation, in that they can select 
comparatively young men as trustees, and get 
from them a long service; and they are also 
free, as regards the choice of trustees, from 
the political, commercial, or class influences 



2 UNIVERSITY TRUSTEES 

which sometimes control the choice of trus- 
tees or reofents in institutions maintained from 
public revenues. In the American State and 
city universities and colleges the objectionable 
political influences have diminished with time ; 
but class influences such as that exerted by 
farmers as a class, or trade-unionists as a class, 
are still apt to prove potent. 

The kind of man needed in the governing 
board of a university is the highly educated, 
public-spirited, business or professional man, 
who takes a strong interest in educational and 
social problems, and believes in the higher 
education as the source of enlightenment and 
progress for all stages of education, and for 
all the industrial and social interests of the 
community. He should also be a man who has 
been successful in his own calling, and com- 
mands the confidence of all who know him. 
The faculty he will most need is good judg- 
ment; for he will often be called upon to de- 
cide on matters which lie beyond the scope of 
his own experience, and about which he must, 
therefore, get his facts through others, and 



SEVEN THE BEST NUMBER 3 

his opinions through a process of comparison 
and judicious shifting. 

The best number of members for a univer- 
sity's principal governing board is seven; be- 
cause that number of men can sit round a small 
table, talk with each other informally without 
waste of words or any display or pretence, 
provide an adequate diversity of points of view 
and modes of dealing with the subject in hand, 
and yet be prompt and efficient in the despatch 
of business. In a board of seven the different 
professions and callings can be sufficiently 
represented. 

In State institutions it has been the practice 
to put into the governing board of the State 
university a considerable number of ex-officio 
members ; as, for instance, the Governor, the 
Chief Justice, and the Secretary of the State 
Board of Agriculture, — following in this re- 
spect the early example of Harvard College, 
whose first governing board, established in 
1642, contained the Governor and Deputy 
Governor, the Magistrates of the Jurisdiction, 
together with the teaching elders of the six 



4 UNIVERSITY TRUSTEES 

next adjoining towns. In an infant colony or 
state this method is a natural one ; but in an 
adult community, ex-officio members are ordi- 
narily undesirable, because they are inevitably 
men fully occupied with other affairs, who 
wer^^ selected for skill in those other affairs, 
and not because of their fitness to govern 
a university. If, however, the trustees are a 
numerous board, meeting but seldom, and in- 
trusting the real work to a few selected mem- 
bers, the ex-officio members may be as good 
figure-heads as the community can supply. 

It might be supposed that the ordinary life- 
service on boards of trustees of endowed insti- 
tutions would result in boards composed of 
old men; but this undesirable result will not 
occur if pains be taken to fill each successive 
vacancy in the board from a generation younger 
than that to which most of the surviving 
members belong. There is a natural tendency 
in any such cooptative board to fill a vacancy 
by electing some contemporary of the remain- 
ing members; but this tendency should inva- 
riably be resisted. 



LENGTH OF SERVICE 5 

The average length of service of members 
of such boards is by no means so long as is 
usually supposed. A few men serve for long 
terms; a few others serve for short terms; 
but the main body of members, during fifty 
or a hundred years, will have a lengi:h of 
service which can fairly be called moderate. 
Thus between 1792 and 1893 thirty-seven 
men served as Fellows in Harvard's principal 
governing board, called the President and 
Fellows of Harvard College; and the aver- 
age term of service of these thirty-seven men 
was eleven and seven-tenths years. It should 
be said, however, first, that to serve on this 
board has always been considered a high 
honor in Massachusetts; and secondly, that 
the service is decidedly exacting, claiming the 
entire attention of the members during about 
four morning hours once a fortnight, except 
during the summer vacation, and entailing a 
variety of work on committees in addition. 

When a board of trustees is large, and the 
residences of its members are scattered over 
a wide area, the meetings of the board are sure 



6 UNIVERSITY TRUSTEES 

to be infrequent, and its business has to be 
delegated to an executive or prudential com- 
mittee. The board itself then becomes a sort 
of confirming or consenting board, and in some 
cases a court of appeal, its real work from 
week to week being done by a small commit- 
tee which can easily come together for consul- 
tation and action. Any board for which a 
membership of national range is desired will 
turn out to be of this nature, as, for example, 
the regents of the Smithsonian Institution and 
the trustees of the Carnegie Foundation. It 
is a curious and interesting fact that the uni- 
versity with the most fortunate organization 
in the country is the oldest university, its 
principal governing board, the President and 
Fellows of Harvard College, consisting of 
seven men, who still act under the Charter 
of 1650, in which no line or word has ever 
been changed. 

The functions of the board of trustees or 
regents of an American university are of fun- 
damental importance. They relate to the man- 



FUNCTIONS OF TKUSTEES 7 

agement of the property both real and per- 
sonal ; to the distribution of the annual income 
of the university among the different depart- 
ments of instruction and research ; to the ap- 
pointment of all officers and teachers in the 
university ; to salaries and retiring allowances ; 
and to the enactment of the rules or statutes 
under which the regular work of the univer- 
sity proceeds. The board also passes finally on 
all the educational policies of the university ; 
but in this function it ordinarily follows the 
advice of the university faculties, or of com- 
mittees to which faculties have delegated their 
authority on certain subjects. 

In the endowed institutions the care of the 
property of the university takes much of the 
time of the trustees. A salaried treasurer is 
responsible for all administrative details, and 
for the suggestion of new investments and 
changes of investments. He needs the aid of 
a small finance committee; and consequently, 
in the choice of trustees, attention should be 
given to providing the treasurer with a small 
number of competent and easily accessible 



8 UNIVERSITY TRUSTEES 

advisers. Experienced boards follow a few 
plain rules with regard to their investments. 
The first rule is to use an adequate variety of 
sound investments, such as mortgages, busi- 
ness notes, — especially notes of corporations, 
— railroad stocks and bonds, bonds of public- 
utilities companies, — such as street railways, 
telegraph and telephone companies, and light, 
heat, and power companies, — real estate trust 
stocks, and real estate. Some endowed uni- 
versities have profited greatly by real estate 
investments in rapidly growing towns and 
cities; but others have found urban real estate 
investments to be not only troublesome but 
insecure, and fluctuating as to the amount of 
their income. The insecurity results from the 
sudden and unforeseen migrations of popula- 
tion and trades which have occurred in many 
American cities. As to agricultural holdings, 
they are in most communities too insecure for 
university investments, as English Cambridge 
and Oxford learnt to their dismay in the last 
third of the nineteenth century. Under the 
tax laws of some States, mortgages, which 



UNIVERSITY INVESTMENTS 9 

were formerly a favorite form of investment 
for universities, as for other trusts, have ceased 
to be desirable. A conservative board inevit- 
ably tends to make local investments, because 
local investments can be more easily investi- 
gated at the beginning, and watched as the 
years go by. Nevertheless, a prudent board of 
university trustees will endeavor to keep the 
range of its investments wide; so that the 
university may not suffer deeply when some 
one section of the country becomes unpros- 
perous, or some one industry ceases to be 
profitable. Railroad stocks and bonds have 
been favorite university investments of late 
years, partly on account of their convenience 
and easy negotiability, but partly also because 
their ultimate security rests on the success of 
an immense variety of industries and pro- 
ductive activities all over the country. It is a 
striking fact that university investments in 
our days, with the exception of real estate 
and mortgages, are made chiefly in forms of 
property which had no existence seventy years 
ago. 



10 UNIVERSITY TRUSTEES 

University trustees naturally prefer that 
funds given them for specific objects should 
not be invested in specified securities, but 
should be merged with the general invest- 
ments of the institution, the average income 
on the general investments being credited to 
each separate fund and applied to its specific 
object. In this way the mass of the general 
investments insures the capital of each fund 
and the perpetual accomplishment of its spe- 
cific object. The benefactor who does not pre- 
fer this method has either a speculative turn 
as regards investments, or a remarkable confi- 
dence in his own judgment concerning to-day's 
investments, combined with a willingness to 
trust for the perpetuity of his endowment 
to the sagacity the trustees will exhibit from 
generation to generation in reinvesting his 
fund. Since, however, benefactors appear from 
time to time who prefer the chances of higher 
income for their funds and of profits on 
changes of the funds' securities to a more 
moderate but assured income, the trustees 
must be prepared to accept gifts which are 



UNIVERSITY EXPENDITURE 11 

to be specially invested. The trustees may 
also have reasons of their own for temporarily 
holding a gift in the particular securities in 
which it was turned over to them. The se- 
curities may not be salable at the moment on 
advantageous terms, and yet be good enough 
to hold for the object of the gift. 

Next to the exercise of good judgment in 
making sound investments of the university 
property, comes the discretion of the trustees 
in expending the university income. There 
are certain fundamental questions concerning 
university expenditure which the trustees, or 
some committee acting for the trustees, must 
settle. What proportion of the university 
income shall be devoted to salaries, and 
what proportion to expenses, — such as light, 
heat, cleaning, maintenance of buildings, ser- 
vices and wages, apparatus, and the care of 
grounds? The large part of a university's 
income which must go to other objects than 
salaries is often a disagreeable surprise for 
inexperienced trustees. Of late years this pro- 
portion devoted to general expenses has been 



12 UNIVERSITY TRUSTEES 

increasiog, on account of the increased pro- 
vision of apparatus and other supplies, and 
the rising cost of the maintenance of build- 
ings and of the mechanical equipment. The 
establishment of a wise scale of salaries is 
another very important duty of the board of 
trustees. Since the physical surroundings and 
social conditions of the American universities 
differ greatly, widely different scales of sala- 
ries exist in them, and these differences seem 
likely to be permanent. Each institution, 
therefore, must study out for itself that scale 
of salaries which best suits its special needs 
and circumstances, and this study and the 
responsibility for ultimate action belong to 
the board of trustees. 

The general features of a good scale of 
salaries are as follows: The salary of an an- 
nual appointee at the start should be low, — 
about the amount needed by a young unmar- 
ried man for comfortable support in the uni- 
versity's city or village. When, after a few 
years, this young man receives an appoint- 
ment without limit of time, a somewhat higher 



THE SCALE OF SALARIES 13 

salary should be given him, with a small ad- 
vance each year for, say, three years. If this 
instructor so commends himself that the uni- 
versity desires his further service, he should 
receive, as assistant professor, a salary which 
will enable him to support a wife and two or 
three children comfortably, but without lux- 
ury or costly pleasures. It is well to have the 
appointment of assistant professor given for a 
fixed term of years, as, for example, five. If, 
at the end of his first term as assistant pro- 
fessor, a second appointment with the same 
title be given, a moderate advance of salary 
should accompany the second appointment. 
By the time the end of a second term as assist- 
ant professor is reached, the candidate for 
further employment in the university will be 
approaching forty years of age, and is ready 
for a full professorship. On promotion to this 
life-office, another advance of salary should 
be given, so that the salary of the full pro- 
fessor may easily be four times the sum which 
the young man received at his first annual 
appointment. The salary of a full professor 



14 UNIVERSITY TRUSTEES 

should then rise by moderate steps — say once 
in five years — until the maximum is reached, 
the maximum being ordinarily attained be- 
tween fifty and fifty-five years of age, unless 
in the cases of men who demonstrate their 
fitness for a professorship earlier in life, and 
have the chance to fill some vacancy or new 
post. This scale of salaries is arranged for 
persons who begin at the bottom, and rise 
through all the stages to the top of university 
employ. When men of ability, proved else- 
where, are taken into the university's service, 
a position on the scale must be assigned to 
them by the trustees, who will naturally be 
guided by the extent of their experience and 
services elsewhere, their desirableness, and 
the inducements other than salary which are 
likely to influence them. To fix this scale o£ 
salaries, and to modify it from time to time, 
according to changing social conditions, and 
the general scale of living in the community 
which surrounds the university, is one of the 
most important duties of trustees, and one of 
the most difficult. 



ADMINISTRATIVE SALARIES — PENSIONS 15 

In a large university there will always be 
, numerous administrative officers besides the 
teachers. The salaries of these administrative 
officers can be, for the most part, assimilated 
according to their age and academic stand- 
ing to those of teachers ; but in general the 
administrative posts in a university are less 
attractive than the teaching posts, because 
they do not offer the satisfaction of literary 
or scientific attainment, the long, uninter- 
rupted vacations which teachers enjoy, or the 
pleasure of intimate, helpful intercourse with 
a stream of young men of high intellectual 
ambition. Accordingly, salaries for able and 
altruistic young men ought to be somewhat 
higher in administrative posts than they are 
for men of corresponding age and merit in 
teaching posts. 

A prudent and far-seeing board of trustees 
will make sure that a system of retiring 
allowances or pensions is provided for all the 
teachers and administrative officers that they 
employ. This provision is needed to attract 
the right sort of man to university work, to 



16 UNIVERSITY TRUSTEES 

make promotion more rapid than it would 
otherwise be, and to keep the university staff 
fresh and efficient. It is not an extravagant 
or luxurious provision, but a true economy. 
So far as the endowed universities are con- 
cerned, the Carnegie Foundation has in large 
measure relieved trustees of this function. 

In the endowed institutions which depend in 
part on tuition-fees, the trustees have a diffi- 
cult function in determining what tuition-fees 
may safely be charged, without reducing the 
number of students, or impairing their quality 
by excluding the able and ambitious sons of 
families whose income is small. Experience 
has taught that well-conducted universities, 
in which a moderate number of scholarships 
and fellowships are accessible to promising 
young men, and a variety of remunerative 
employments can be offered to students for a 
part of their time, can be successfully main- 
tained, and, indeed, rapidly enlarged, although 
they charge considerable tuition-fees, and are 
all the time in competition with universi- 
ties which charge nothing, or but little, for 



INCREASING UNIVERSITY RESOURCES 17 

tuition. To accomplish this end, however, 
requires prudence and good judgment on the 
part of the trustees, together with a broad 
outlook on the general conditions of Ameri- 
can society. 

Every university board of trustees has to 
study carefully the means of enlarging the 
resources of the university. An endowed uni- 
versity needs a stream of new gifts, in order 
to enable it to maintain its old departments, 
and provide the new ones which the social 
and industrial changes in the community at 
large make desirable, or, indeed, indispen- 
sable. The most effectual means of procuring 
new gifts is to demonstrate that all previous 
gifts have been used with consideration for 
the givers' wishes, with safety as regards the 
permanence of the trusts, and with discretion 
as regards their steady usefulness. The win- 
ning of new endowments depends on wide- 
spread confidence in the wisdom and success 
with which the trustees have used their exist- 
ing endowments. To this end any experienced 
and successful board of trustees will make the 



18 UNIVERSITY TRUSTEES 

most complete publication possible of their 
annual accounts and of the state of their pro- 
perty. They will also secure in some way the 
public announcement of the pressing needs 
of the university in the immediate future. 

In a State university the function of the 
board of trustees or regents in this respect is 
similar to^ but not identical with, that in an 
endowed. There is the same need of the ut- 
most publicity with regard to all the financial 
doings of the board and the condition of the 
property ; but their attention needs to be di- 
rected chiefly to convincing the people of the 
State, and particularly the members of the le- 
gislature, first, of the usefulness of their uni- 
versity; secondly, of its merits and defects 
in comparison with the universities of other 
States ; and thirdly, of its urgent needs. As in 
the case of the endowed institutions, the trus- 
tees or regents will need to use all means of 
spreading among educated people throughout 
the State a knowledge, not only of the actual 
condition of the university, but of its potency 
and promise. If the industries of the State are 



IlSrCREASING UNIVERSITY RESOURCES 19 

developed in any particular direction, as, for 
example, towards mining, or agriculture, or 
forestry, or manufacturing, the university trus- 
tees will naturally endeavor to serve conspicu- 
ously the special industry of the State; be- 
cause a popular interest in the university thus 
aroused can be depended on to promote en- 
largements in many other directions. The ex- 
perience of such universities as those of Michi- 
gan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Illinois, Missouri, 
Kansas, and California, illustrates amply all 
phases of this important function of university 
trustees in increasing university resources. 

It is the duty of the trustees of a college or 
university to promote in every possible way 
the interests of the municipality in which the 
institution is situated. As a rule, whatever 
helps the college or university will help the 
municipality, and whatever improves the muni- 
cipality as a place of residence will help the 
college or university. It has been abundantly 
proved that the presence of exempted institu- 
tions in any municipality is a clear advantage 
to that municipality, especially if the institu- 



20 UNIVERSITY TRUSTEES 

tions maintain open grounds and erect inter- 
esting buildings. Indeed, exempted areas, if 
they possess natural or artificial beauty, and 
are kept in good order, are always a pecuniary 
advantage to a municipality, whether they 
belong to the town or city, or to exempted in- 
stitutions within its limits. Since, however, 
it is the duty of university trustees to see to it 
that safe and convenient lodgings are acces- 
sible to their students, and that wholesome 
food can be obtained at low prices, it is pos- 
sible for trustees, who attend to their duties 
in these respects, to interfere somewhat with 
the business of those residents of the muni- 
cipality who let rooms to students, or feed 
them. University trustees may reasonably re- 
gard it as their duty also to see to it that all 
the supplies which students need, such as 
books, stationery, clothing, and furniture, are 
brought within the reach of students at moder- 
ate prices through the agency of a cooperative 
society ; and if such a society be established 
with the assistance of the trustees, it will 
interfere somewhat with the business of local 



LODGINGS, FOOD, AND SUPPLIES 21 

dealers in such supplies. A due regard to the 
welfare of the students and the institution 
makes it impossible for careful and judicious 
trustees to leave the prices of the things which 
all students — rich and poor alike — must buy 
to be determined by competition between 
private persons only, particularly at an insti- 
tution at which the number of students is 
increasing with some rapidity. Unless a uni- 
versity be willing to take its students only 
from well-to-do families, it must see to it that 
lodgings, food, fuel, and indispensable sup- 
plies are accessible to students at moderate 
prices. Moreover, halls of chambers and large 
dining-halls increase not only the enjoyments 
of student-life, but also its ethical and demo- 
cratic influences. To overcome this inevitable 
difficulty in its relations to the municipality 
in which it is situated, a college or university 
should be careful to offer facilities and grati- 
fications to the residents of the place, such as 
interesting lectures open to the public, and 
museums of art, history, and archaeology, to 
keep the view of its grounds open from the 



22 UNIVERSITY TRUSTEES 

outside, and to give the use of its halls and 
grounds to the town or city on festival occa- 
sions. A college or university may also reason- 
ably contribute to the construction of good 
roads on the borders of its estate, and of any 
sewers of which it makes large use. 

It is an imperative duty of university trus- 
tees to take all possible measures for pro- 
moting the health and bodily vigor of the 
students under their charge. These measures 
include a safe water-supply, adequate warmth 
and ventilation in university buildings, good 
play-grounds and other means of exercise, an 
infirmary or hospital for the treatment of in- 
juries and of contagious and non-contagious 
diseases, and a system of medical inspection 
and free medical examination for students. It 
is nowadays quite possible, through foresight 
and adequate expenditure for the means of 
immediate isolation and treatment, to reduce 
very much the chance of epidemics, even 
among young men who live together in such 
intimate contact as obtains at a college or uni- 
versity. It is for the board of trustees to de- 



UNIVERSITY GROUNDS AND BUILDINGS 23 

vise and provide all such means of combating 
disease. It is for them to adopt all measures 
which preventive medicine has proved to be 
useful, and thereby reduce to lowest terms not 
only the death rate among students, but also 
the losses of study-time through sickness. 

A difficult function for university trustees 
is the provident care of the university estate, 
including the selection of designs for build- 
ings, the determination of the grouping of 
buildings, the laying-out and decoration of 
the university's occupied grounds, and the 
provision of an amount of land sufficient for 
future needs. To secure by gift or purchase 
adequate space for the buildings of the pre- 
sent and in good part for those of the future 
is a primary duty. The beauty of university 
buildings, of their site, and of the grounds 
about them, makes an important part of its 
teaching. On this account urban universities 
whose buildings are situated in compactly 
built streets can never exert on their students 
all the beneficial influences which suburban 
or rural universities can exert. Every large 



24 UNIVERSITY TRUSTEES 

university should own and maintain in good 
order decorated open spaces about its build- 
ings, interior quadrangles between groups of 
buildings, gardens, and groves. Shabbiness 
and untidiness should never be permitted on 
university grounds. If the site provides wide 
prospects or beautiful vistas, these landscape 
beauties should be carefully utilized, and pre- 
served from impairment by the growing up 
of trees, or the planting of buildings across 
the lines of view. In order to discharge well 
this function of university trustees, the board 
should obtain the best professional advice 
which the country affords, and is never justi- 
fied in employing for local or political reasons, 
or in deference to the wishes of benefactors, 
any advisers about the designs of buildings, 
their sites, and the lay-out of grounds, who 
are not of the first class. In accepting the 
gift of a building, prudent trustees will always 
make the condition that the design and site 
of the building shall be acceptable to the ex- 
pert advisers of the board. Since architecture 
and landscape architecture have now become 



BEAUTY OF GROUNDS AND BUILDINGS 25 

well-recognized professions for highly trained 
men in the United States, it has become 
inexcusable in university trustees to erect 
buildings without the most careful possible 
consideration of their designs and of the re- 
lation of each building to its neighbors, or to 
plant buildings about their grounds without 
reference to the future buildings which the 
university is sure to need. 

The poverty in which almost all American 
universities have grown up has compelled 
their trustees to accept any provision for the 
needs of the moment, and to use their limited 
means in the most economical way for present 
purposes without regard to the needs of the 
future. They have, therefore, too much neg- 
lected the study of order and beauty in the lay- 
out of university grounds, and have incurred 
great losses through the erection of build- 
ings which were not fireproof. They needed 
spacious shelters so urgently, that they ran 
the risk of building large combustible struc- 
tures instead of smaller fireproof ones. These 
conditions of poverty are now passing away, 



26 UNIVERSITY TRUSTEES 

and it is emphatically the duty of university 
trustees to erect buildings, lay out their open 
grounds, and plant them, with reference to 
the sure centuries of affectionate use. Uni- 
versity grounds and buildings can now be ar- 
ranged to last, which seems to be more than 
can be said for any other buildings in the 
United States, with the possible exception of 
some government buildings and some country 
churches. It may not be very important to 
study carefully the design of a house, factory, 
shop, office-building, or church, which is likely 
to be burnt, torn down, or converted to new 
uses within seventy years; but grounds and 
buildings which really have a chance to prove 
permanent ought to be studied in the most 
careful manner possible. Because of the im- 
portance of this function of university trustees, 
it is highly desirable, whenever the conditions 
permit, that trustees should be selected who 
feel a real affection for the university which 
they are to govern, and for its surroundings. 
Strangers will, as a rule, not make so good 
trustees as children of the house. 



PRUDENCE IN ACCEPTING GIFTS 27 

The trustees of an endowed university have 
a somewhat difficult duty in regard to the 
acceptance of gifts. There are gifts which it 
is highly inexpedient to accept, — as, for in- 
stance, a gift for a specified object which is 
not of a surely durable nature, and yet comes 
without discretion for the trustees as to other 
applications of the gift when its specified use 
shall be no longer possible, or a gift which 
would impair religious toleration or academic 
freedom, or a gift which cannot be utilized with- 
out bringing new charges on the university it- 
self. The trustees must endeavor to divert bene- 
factors away from any such gifts as these and 
towards safe objects, or must procure modifica- 
tions of the terms of proposed gifts, so that these 
dangers may be avoided. Thus a small building 
with an adequate endowment for its running 
expenses and maintenance will generally be 
a more acceptable gift than a larger build- 
ing without endowment. Living benefactors 
are generally willing to modify terms of gift 
in accordance with well-considered university 
policies which have been avowed and declared, 



28 UNIVERSITY TRUSTEES 

and have served as guides in other instances. 
Indeed, many benefactors are grateful for ad- 
vice which, if acted on by them, will tend to 
make their benefactions more useful and more 
durable. In order to maintain public respect 
for the endowment method, it is highly de- 
sirable that university trustees exercise a sound 
discretion as to the terms of proposed gifts. 
Thus far there have been very few instances 
in the United States of objectionable endow- 
ments, — objectionable because pauperizing, 
illiberal, or useless; and in consequence the 
endowment method, far from being distrusted 
by the American public, is looked upon with 
high favor, as a beneficent application of pri- 
vate resources to public uses. It is for univer- 
sity trustees, by the exercise of good judgment 
in the acceptance of endowments, to maintain 
and extend the public's appreciation of their 
value. 

The trustees of a State university need much 
wisdom and foresight in suggesting to the 
legislature which appropriates money for the 
university the specific objects of appropria- 



SPENDING ALL AVAILABLE INCOME 29 

tion. The legislature itself cannot be expected 
to discern and contrive the wisest appropria- 
tions for the university, and therefore should 
receive from the trustees advice based on a 
thorough knowledge of the work already done 
by the university, and a clear anticipation of 
the new work it ought to do, in order to de- 
velop the intellectual resources and powers of 
the entire population. In order to perform 
this function well, they will need the best 
advice which presidents, deans, faculties, and 
faculty committees can give them ; but they 
must finally take action on their own best 
judgment concerning the needs of the univer- 
sity and the State. 

A university should not be carried on, like 
a business corporation, with any policy of lay- 
ing up undivided profits, or of setting aside 
unused income for emergencies or future 
needs. On the contrary, it should endeavor 
to expend all its available income. While it 
should never live beyond its means, it has no 
call to accumulate for the benefit of future 
generations. For enlargements, new equip- 



30 UNIVERSITY TRUSTEES 

ments, and the occupation of new fields of 
usefulness, it should rely on new endowments 
or new annual receipts; or, if it be a State 
university, on new appropriations. In endeav- 
oring to use all its proper income, it may 
sometimes incur a deficit ; but it should forth- 
with take measures to prevent the recurrence 
of such a deficit, since habitual deficits, how- 
ever incurred, must be charged either to past 
endowments which ought to be held unim- 
paired, or to future resources which are only 
hoped for. Each of these methods is objec- 
tionable ill itself, and each sets a bad example 
to educational, charitable, and religious insti- 
tutions. 

From the board of trustees issue the stat- 
utes which determine tenures of of&ce in the 
university, the constitution and powers of the 
faculties and other academic bodies, the defi- 
nitions of the duties of the president, the 
deans, and other administrative officers, the 
division of the academic year into term-time 
and vacation, and the general rules under 
which libraries and scientific collections are 



STATUTES AND STANDING VOTES 31 

to be used. The enactment of the statutes 
which keep in tolerably stable form all these 
definitions and regulations is a weighty part 
of the duty of the trustees. It is by means of 
statutes and standing votes that the trustees 
formally delegate a large part of their powers 
of management and control to various aca- 
demic bodies and officers ; but in many insti- 
tutions custom or usage, their own or imitated, 
has much to do with the distribution of powers 
among the different academic bodies. It is 
the common custom for trustees to consign to 
faculties the determination of the require- 
ments for admission and for the several de- 
grees, of the methods and limits of instruc- 
tion, and of the daily routine of duty for 
students and teachers, the administration of 
discipline, and the immediate supervision of 
the conditions of the academic Hfe. Trustees 
should never interfere with matters once con- 
signed to a faculty by statute or custom, 
unless in the way of inquiry or informal sug- 
gestion, or exercise any powers delegated to 
a faculty. Such interference will impair very 



32 UNIVERSITY TRUSTEES 

injuriously a faculty's sense of responsibility 
and its authority. Trustees should also be 
careful not to impair the due effect of of&cial 
action on the part of a faculty by listening 
to the private representations of individual 
members of the faculty who do not agree with , 
the action of the majority. In grave cases the 
opinion of a faculty minority may properly be 
presented officially to the trustees. 

The statute which defines the tenures of 
office throughout the university is of funda- 
mental importance; for it is practically the 
expression of a contract between the univer- 
sity and its teachers and administrators. This 
contract ought to provide for life-tenures 
after adequate periods of probation. Life- 
tenures in a permanent service are by far the 
most economical and effective ; but they are 
impossible in a service which must always be 
kept in a high state of efficiency, unless the 
incumbents have been so well proved, that 
nothing but bodily disability, or some similar 
calamity, can interfere with their usefulness, 
and also unless a pension system provides for 



TERM-TIME AND VACATION 33 

the humane retirement of incumbents whose 
efficiency is impaired. 

The determination of the limits of term- 
time and vacation by statute necessarily be- 
longs to the trustees in a university ; because 
all the teachers and other officers of the uni- 
versity have a direct personal interest — not 
necessarily pecuniary — in the amount of vaca- 
tion. The trustees, in making the division of 
the year, must consider not only the interest 
of the teachers, but that of the students, and 
the interests of these two parties are some- 
what divided. Some of the richer students 
want short terms for study and long vacations 
for purposes of pleasure and travel; while 
many of the poorer students also want long 
vacations for the purpose of earning money in 
outside occupations. On the other hand, some 
of the richer sort are entirely ready to occupy 
a large portion of the summer vacation with 
reading and study ; and some of the poorer 
students find it easier to earn money in term- 
time than in vacation, because they can then 
teach other students, and obtain a variety of 



34 UNIVERSITY TRUSTEES 

employments at the seat of the university which 
are not obtainable during the summer vacation. 
In a country like Scotland, where many sons 
of poor families resort to the universities, the 
amount of term-time during the year will natu- 
rally be made short, in order that the student 
may have at least half the year to earn the 
money which he spends at the university dur- 
ing the other half. In universities like the 
Enghsh Oxford and Cambridge, on the other 
hand, which are chiefly resorted to by the sons 
of well-to-do families, a quite different motive 
may determine short periods of residence at 
the university in each academic year, and long 
vacations and recesses. Athletic and social 
distractions from study are urgent during resi- 
dence, and are the main objects of unambi- 
tious or sportive youth ; while serious students 
find the long vacation more available for study 
than the short terms spent in residence. Hence 
in England short terms and long vacations. 
The American universities in general require 
residence for something less than thirty-seven 
weeks out of the year, a period of residence 



CHANGES IN UNIVERSITY VACATIONS 35 

decidedly longer than that of the European 
universities in general. During the nineteenth 
century the arrangement of terms and vaca- 
tions in the American universities underwent 
many changes, because of changes in the 
habits of the families from which their stu- 
dents were derived, and in the customs of the 
trades and professions. Changes in the mode 
of conducting country elementary schools also 
brought about changes in college vacations. 
Thus, fifty years ago undergraduates in the 
American colleges left college in large num- 
bers about Thanksgiving to teach country 
schools during three months of winter ; and 
one of the long vacations of the year at the 
colleges was made to fall within this period. 
With the substitution of women teachers for 
men in the country schools, this practice 
among collegians has disappeared, and with it 
has gone the long vacation in winter. 

University trustees, in considering the 
division of the academic year into term-time 
and vacation, have also to consider the value 
of a long vacation for the teachers of a uni- 



36 UNIVERSITY TRUSTEES 

versitjj and especially for those teachers who 
wish to give a large portion of their time to 
literary or scientific labors which lie outside 
of their teaching, though contributory to it. 
The long summer vacation is for many univer- 
sity of&cers the most laborious and productive 
season of the whole year, and trustees who 
value this sort of activity on the part of the 
university's officers will be slow to interfere 
with that vacation, even though they recog- 
nize that in the interest of the majority of the 
students a shorter vacation would be better. 

The general rules under which libraries 
and scientific collections are to be used are 
subjects for careful consideration on the part 
of university trustees. On the one hand these 
expensive collections can have but one justifi- 
cation, namely, that they are constantly and 
effectively used; on the other hand, they need 
to be preserved in good condition for the 
benefit of future generations of students. The 
problem of the trustees is to lay down rules 
which will provide a safe middle way between 
use which tends towards destruction and se- 



LIBKARIES AND COLLECTIONS 37 

curity which is inconsistent with use. The 
tendency at the present time among trustees 
is to divide the collections into two parts, one 
part to be preserved at the risk of not being 
so serviceable to the present generation as it 
might be, the other to be made as serviceable 
as possible to the present generation, even at 
the risk of destruction. 

An experienced board of university trus- 
tees will always maintain a considerate and 
even deferential attitude towards the experts 
whom they employ as regular teachers, occa- 
sional lecturers, and permanent administrators. 
They stand to these experts in an entirely 
different relation from that in which a busi- 
ness board of directors stands towards its 
employees. In the first place, the trustees are 
not themselves expert in any branch of the 
university teaching, and they are not experts 
in the policy or discipline of a university. 
They are completely dependent for the com- 
petent performance of the university's main 
work on the attainments and the good-will of 
the university teachers. Moreover, the supply 



38 UNIVERSITY TRUSTEES 

of competent teachers and investigators for 
the service of universities is ordinarily scanty 
and irregular ; so that university trustees, who 
seek all possible aids, often fail to find men 
well fitted to undertake the more difficult 
functions of university teachers. On this ac- 
count the trustees may be quite unable to 
carry out well-made plans, and be forced to 
take up with inferior or modified designs. 
Again, the advanced teaching of a university 
cannot be obtained on a telegraphic order. 
It must often be long prepared, through years 
of anticipatory selection, watching, and wait- 
ing. It is often impossible for trustees to pro- 
cure in the market the human article they 
need, or think they need. From this state of 
things it results that competent trustees, who 
are responsible for the university and under- 
stand their own situation, treat the scholars 
who compose the university's staff with great 
consideration, and try to secure for them the 
respect of the entire community. 

Experience in the management of a farm, 
a shop, a railroad, a factory, or a bank may 



A TRUE UNIVERSITY ORGANIZATION 39 

be of some use to the business man called to 
the function of a university trustee ; but many 
of the things he has learnt to value in his 
business experience he will have to discard 
absolutely in contributing to the management 
of a university, because they are inapplicable. 
Thus, a pure business man generally thinks 
that he can buy such service as he needs, if 
he is willing to pay its price ; and in this view 
he is ordinarily right. That conception, how- 
ever, has but a small place in the management 
of a university; for money cannot buy the 
best of the services that are really needed. 
Money is not the appropriate reward for the 
quick sympathy, genuine good-will, patience, 
and comprehensive learning which go to the 
making of a first-rate university teacher. 

The trustees of the American universities 
have a difficult problem to solve in the near 
future in creating a definite university or- 
ganization, and bringing the new organiza- 
tion into fitting relations with the secondary 
schools on the one hand and the professions 
on the other. The American universities 



40 UNIVERSITY TRUSTEES 

have grown in a casual^ agglutinating way, 
without any definite plan or framework to 
tie together the different departments which 
were successively created. They have ordina- 
rily started with the somewhat definite organi- 
zation called a college, and around this college 
have grown up an undergraduate department 
of applied science including agriculture and 
engineering, and so-called professional schools 
of law, medicine, dentistry, pharmacy, finance 
or commerce, and, in a few cases, divinity. 
The standard of admission to the professional 
schools has usually heen much lower than 
the standard of admission to the college ; and 
indeed in many universities there have been 
no requirements at all for admission to the 
professional schools; so that anybody could 
enter them, with or without any preparatory 
education. Their students were therefore very 
heterogeneous in quality, and were, as a rule, 
looked down upon by the college students who 
were candidates for the degree of Bachelor 
of Arts. Now a group of detached, unrelated 
schools is not a university; and it is for the 



GRADUATE PROFESSIONAL SCHOOLS 41 

trustees of the larger American institutions o£ 
the higher education to convert these groups 
of schools into true universities. As a matter 
of history, the first steps towards this reform 
were taken by instituting courses of instruc- 
tion for the higher degrees in arts, such as 
the Master's degree and the degree of Doctor 
of Philosophy, admission to this advanced in- 
struction being conditioned on the possession 
of a Bachelor's degree. 

The graduate schools of arts and sciences, 
most of which have been established during 
the past thirty-five years, were organized in 
this way, and the success and high usefulness 
of these graduate schools indicated that the 
method they had used could be applied to 
other professional departments. All the pro- 
fessional schools of a university ought to re- 
quire the preliminary degree of Bachelor of 
Arts, or of Science, for admission ; and only 
when this requirement has been successfully 
enforced will the unorganized group of sepa- 
rate departments which now passes for a uni- 
versity in the United States be really converted 



42 UNIVERSITY TRUSTEES 

into a true university. This conversion, how- 
ever, presents many difficulties, among which 
not the least is the pecuniary difficulty. It is, 
therefore, a difficult piece of work for the 
trustees of a university to undertake ; and to 
accomplish it well will task both their far- 
sightedness and their judgment. 

Much has been written about the distinc- 
tion between a college and a university. It is 
no wonder that public opinion has been at 
a loss on that subject, since it has had no 
correct standard of university organization. 
When the American university is properly 
organized, it will become clear to the public 
that a college is a place of training for the 
first degree in arts or science obtainable at 
about twenty-one years of age, and that a 
university is a place for older students who 
already possess the preliminary degree in arts 
or science, and are studying for higher de- 
grees in large variety. Of course a university 
may or may not carry on also a college. This 
change of organization should be accompanied 
by a change in the common ideal of the culti- 



AN HONORABLE SERVICE 43 

vated man, and of cultivation itself. The pro- 
fessional students in a university under the 
new regime will be, on the average, decidedly 
the superiors in age and cultivation of the 
college students; because they will be older 
men, who have already received the college 
training; and whatever may be the subjects 
of their advanced studies, they will all be re- 
cognized as cultivated men, — and cultivated 
through their professional studies quite as 
much as through their college studies. The 
bread-and-butter motive should not prevail in 
a university's professional school to any greater 
extent than it should prevail in a college. In 
both departments it is reasonable for the indi- 
vidual student to keep in view the means of 
by and by earning a livelihood ; but in both 
alike the dominant motive should be the de- 
sire to be serviceable, and to be well equipped 
to give, and to enjoy giving, effective service. 
It is obvious from this description of the 
functions and responsibilities of university 
trustees that service on such boards is in high 
degree interesting, useful, and honorable. 



II 



AN INSPECTING AND CONSENTING 
BODY — ALUMNI INFLUENCE 

The trustees of an American college or uni- 
versity, whether the institution be endowed or 
tax-supported, are as a rule ^^one body corpo- 
rate and politic in deed, action, and name," to 
use the language of the charter of Dartmouth 
College given in 1769. This one body holds 
all the property of the institution, controls its 
expenditures and its policies, and makes all 
its laws. Even boards of directors for busi- 
ness corporations are generally less independ- 
ent and absolute than this educational board. 
The number of trustees is very various. Thus 
at Dartmouth College the trustees must be 
twelve and no more. The original corporators 
of Brown University numbered forty-seven per- 
sons; but the Corporation consisted of two 
branches, " to wit : that of the Trustees and that 
of the Fellowship, with distinct, separate, and 



A SINGLE GOVERNING BOARD 45 

respective powers/' the number of the Trus- 
tees being thirty-six, and that of the Fellows 
twelve, inclusive of the President, who must 
always be a Fellow. The charter of the Col- 
legiate School of Connecticut, now called Yale 
University, given in October, 1701, created a 
body of "Trustees, Partners, or Undertakers 
[originally ten ministers], together with such 
others as they shall associate to themselves, 
not exceeding the number of eleven, or at any 
time being less than seven." In 1792 the Gov- 
ernor, Lieutenant-Governor, and six Senior 
Assistants in the Council were made by virtue 
of their offices Trustees, or Fellows, of said 
College; in 1819 six Senior Senators were 
substituted for the six Senior Assistants; and 
in 1872 six persons elected by the graduates 
of Yale College were substituted for the six 
Senators. The constitution of Michigan pro- 
vides for the election by the people of eight 
Regents of the University, elected two at a 
time every other year, so that each Regent 
serves eight years. The government of the 
University of Wisconsin is vested "in a 



46 AN INSPECTING AND CONSENTING BODY 

Board of Kegents to consist of one member 
from each congressional district, and two from 
the State at large, at least one of whom shall 
be a woman, to be appointed by the Gov- 
ernor." In addition, the State Superintendent 
of Instruction and the President of the Uni- 
versity are ex-o£ficio members of the board. 
The term of office of the appointed Eegents is 
three years. The government of the Univer- 
sity of California is vested in an incorporated 
board called " The Regents of the University 
of California." This board consists of twenty- 
two members, six ex-officio, eight appointed 
by the Governor with the consent of the Senate, 
one every other year for a term of sixteen 
years, and eight chosen by the official and ap- 
pointed members who also hold office for the 
term of sixteen years, one member going out at 
the end of each successive two years. It will be 
noticed that the term of service in this board 
is long, and that the renewal of membership 
is gradual. Since ex-officio members are rarely 
able to give much time or thought to such a 
trust; the control of the university may fairly 



CLOSE COLLEGE CORPORATIONS 47 

be said to be in the hands of sixteen persons, 
or a majority thereof. This board is provided 
by Statute (Chap. CCXLIV, Sect. 16) with 
an unusual sort of secretary, whose extensive 
duties and large qualifications are minutely 
prescribed. Under this statute the Secretary of 
the Regents might easily become the most im- 
portant official connected with the university. 

The board of trustees of many endowed 
institutions fills its own vacancies, which is 
never the case in State-supported institutions. 
Such boards are close corporations indeed. In 
some denominational colleges and universities 
the trustees, or a majority of them, are selected 
or appointed by denominational authorities. 
Thus, in institutions under the control of the 
Methodist denomination, a majority of the 
trustees is often chosen by a group of Meth- 
odist Conferences. 

However selected, chosen, or appointed, the 
members of the board of trustees of an Ameri- 
can college or university ordinarily constitute 
a single governing board which is not respon- 
sible to any affiliated or independent board, 



48 AN INSPECTING AND CONSENTING BODY ; 

and is not obliged to procure the concurrence 
or consent of any other body. They therefore 
need the steady influence of a larger inspect- 
ing and criticising body with some concurrent 
powers, in order that they may escape the 
dangers of perpetual corporations subject to 
no external control. When the trustees are 
somewhat numerous and meet but rarely, be- 
cause their residences are widely separated, 
the main body may exercise in an imperfect 
way this function of inspection and control 
over the small executive committee to which 
the powers of the full board are of necessity 
delegated ; but whenever the board of trustees 
is of moderate number, not widely separated 
as regards residence, and consequently dili- 
gent and active, it is highly desirable that a 
second and larger board should be created to 
represent public educated opinion, and par- 
ticularly the opinion of the graduates of the 
institution. This is especially the case if the 
board of trustees is empowered to fill its own 
^vacancies. 

In this respect the organization of Harvard 



HARVARD BOARD OF OVERSEERS 49 

University is a most fortunate one; for the 
University possesses a second Board, called 
the Overseers, and consisting of thirty mem- 
bers, since 1866 elected by the Alumni in 
groups of five to serve six years, together with 
the President and Treasurer of the University 
ex-of&cio. Other institutions have endeavored 
to gain some of the advantages which Harvard 
derives from its Board of Overseers by con- 
triving the election of some of their trustees 
by the Alumni, or inventing some equivalent 
device; but none of these contrivances are as 
effective as the Harvard Board. The composi- 
tion of that admirable Board underwent many 
changes between 1642 — the date of the first 
Act establishing the Board — and 1902, when 
the legislature finally placed in the hands of 
"the President and Fellows of Harvard Col- 
lege and the Board of Overseers of said Col- 
lege" the power to determine "what degrees 
issued by said College . . . shall entitle the 
recipients thereof to vote for Overseers"; but 
for more than forty years, since 1866, its 
statutory constitution has left nothing to 



50 AN INSPECTING AND gONSENTING BODY 

desire. By statute and custom the Board of 
Overseers must give consent to the election of 
every member of the Corporation, — the short 
title of the President and Fellows of Harvard 
College, — of every professor, assistant pro- 
fessor, preacher to the University, and admin- 
istrative of&cer, and of all other officers of in- 
struction elected for terms exceeding one year. 
They must also act on appointments by the 
Corporation of directors for scientific estab- 
lishments, and of librarians. In short, the 
Board exercises a control over all important 
appointments within the University. It is also 
entitled to take concurrent action with the 
President and Fellows on the adoption of all 
statutes or standing votes affecting general 
policies of the University, and on the confer- 
ring of all degrees. 

The influence on the President and Fellows 
of this constant need to procure the consent of 
the Board of Overseers is strong. Every ap- 
pointment and every statute or standing vote 
must be capable of defense before the Over- 
seers. The fact that the consent of the Board 



HARVARD BOARD OF OVERSEERS 51 

of Overseers is almost invariably given to the 
action of the President and Fellows does not 
diminish this influence, or have any tendency 
to prove that the influence does not exist. The 
President and Fellows always feel that they 
must be able to make a strong case before 
the Board of Overseers in favor of any action 
which requires the consent of that Board; and 
this feeling is a very wholesome one in a small 
board the members of which are elected for 
life. The Board of Overseers may fairly be 
said to represent public educated opinion and 
the opinion of the Alumni on all questions of 
University policy. For many years the Massa- 
chusetts Statutes required members of the 
Board of Overseers to be "all inhabitants 
within the State " ; but in 1880 this restric- 
tion was repealed; so that members of the 
Board have for twenty-eight years been eligi- 
ble from any part of the country, or, indeed, 
from any part of the world. The Board meets 
ordinarily nine or ten times a year; but in 
spite of the frequency of the meetings, it has 
been found possible to take members from 



52 AN INSPECTING AND CONSENTING BODY 

distant parts of the country. The existence of 
the Board of Overseers greatly increases pub- 
lic confidence in the management of the Presi- 
dent and FellowSj and this confidence extends 
to all the functions of the President and Fel- 
lows, financial as well as educational. 

Besides this right of consenting to or dis- 
senting from all important actions taken by 
the President and Fellows, the Overseers exer- 
cise freely the right of inspecting, or examining 
the condition of, any and every department of 
the University. This inspection or examina- 
tion is conducted by committees appointed 
by the Board, and these committees may or 
may not consist, in whole or in part, of mem- 
bers of the Board. All the instruction given in 
the University is thus liable to be inspected 
by visiting committees appointed by the Over- 
seers ; and the reports of these committees are 
made public, or kept private, at the discretion 
of the Board. The nature of the instruction in 
any department, and of the examinations held 
by any department, may thus be made the 
subject of a public report. It is of course diffi- 



HARVARD VISITING COMMITTEES 53 

cult to obtain for all departments men, not 
members of the University's staff, who are 
competent to criticise the work of university 
teachers, particularly as the service of the 
Overseers themselves, and of all the commit- 
tees that they appoint, is gratuitous. Neverthe- 
less, this function of inspection or examination 
has a high value, now in one department of 
the University and now in another. It checks 
eccentricities, brings out defects, and signal- 
izes merits. The Visiting Committees have au- 
thority to examine all question-papers prepared 
for university examinations, and all the papers 
written by students in answering those ques- 
tions. Since at Harvard, as at the American 
universities in general, the instructors have 
charge of the examinations in the courses they 
have themselves given, this disinterested judg- 
ment of outsiders on the question-papers and 
answer-papers may at any time have a high 
value. 

The Overseers' Visiting Committees have, 
however, a function which is more effective 
than that of criticism. In inquiring into the 



54 AN INSPECTING AND CONSENTING BODY 

condition of any department — as of French, 
Physics, Zoology, Law, or Medicine — the 
Committee naturally puts itself into contact 
"with the teachers of the department, confers 
with them, and learns from them the needs 
and hopes of the department as a whole. 
These needs the Committee, as an impartial 
body appointed for purposes of inquiry and 
examination, can put before the President and 
Fellows, the other academic bodies, and the 
public much more effectively than the teachers 
themselves can. Thus the Visiting Committees 
become instrumentalities for cooperating with 
the departments in raising money to meet 
urgent needs, or make improvements. In an 
endowed institution the cooperation of such 
Committees in giving publicity to needs and 
procuring the means of meeting the needs is 
of great value. Over and over again the Vis- 
iting Committees of the Harvard Board of 
Overseers — now in one department and now 
in another — have procured additional re- 
sources for the University, — sometimes by 
contributing themselves, but more frequently 



HARVARD VISITING COMMITTEES 55 

by calling upon public-spirited persons known 
to be interested in the objects the Commit- 
tees were trying to promote. The Visiting 
Committees thus enlarge the circle of Har- 
vard's benefactors, and place in the hands 
of the President and Fellows new resources, 
sometimes to be expended for immediate 
needs, and sometimes to be funded as per- 
manent endowments. At Harvard there were 
forty-eight such Visiting Committees of the 
Board of Overseers during the year 1906-07, 
two Committees having three members, sev- 
eral having four, and the larger Committees 
numbering from nine to eleven members. 
The members of the Committees generally 
have their interest in some department of the 
University's work much quickened, and this 
quickened interest they diffuse, each in his 
own circle of acquaintances ; so that there re- 
sults a large body of persons who have some 
exact knowledge of the University's work and 
needs, and are interested in supporting the 
University in every way. This system at Har- 
vard is an outgrowth of an ancient practice 



56 AN INSPECTING AND CONSENTING BODY 

of the Board of Overseers to appoint commit- 
tees to attend the oral examinations of the 
four classes in Harvard College held twice a 
year, at the end of each of the two terms. 
When the periodical examinations ceased to 
be oral, these semi-annual visits from commit- 
tees of the Board of Overseers were discon- 
tinued, and the present system was gradually 
developed as a substitute. By 1881-82, fifteen 
years after members of the Board of Over- 
seers began to be chosen by the Alumni, the 
present system was well under way. It has, 
however, been continuously enlarged and im- 
proved. It is primarily an admirable means of 
^ publicity, and therefore affords protection not 
only against errors or abuses in administration 
and instruction, but against indifference and 
sluggishness on the part of the administration, 
or of any of the academic bodies or officials 
who exercise delegated powers. Since a uni- 
versity inevitably tends to undue conservatism, 
a friendly criticising, probing, and stimulating 
agency can be very useful to it. The organi- 
zation implies the existence within easy reach 



HARVARD BOARD OF OVERSEERS 57 

of the University of a large community in 
which the higher education has long been well 
established, and public spirit and constructive 
benevolence towards education are held in 
high honor. 

It is a grave problem how to get the advan- 
tages of the Harvard system in a university 
which has but one governing body, and that 
a large one meeting infrequently. Something 
can be done by small sub-committees of this 
large body; but unless many of the trustees 
are elected by the Alumni, these sub-commit- 
tees will not be believed to represent Alumni 
opinion. Any board of trustees might organize 
visiting committees analogous to the Harvard 
Committees ; but committees so selected could 
hardly command the same confidence as critics 
and inspectors which the Harvard Committees, 
appointed by a separate body whose primary 
duty is supervision, can reasonably command. 

The influence of the Harvard Board of 
Overseers is not exerted through criticism and 
inquiry only. Their action has sometimes been 
constructive in a high degree. Thus in 1766 



58 AN INSPECTING AND CONSENTING BODY 

it was the Board of Overseers, and not the 
President and Fellows, that accomplished the 
great reform of making the college instruc- 
tion departmental by subject. Before that 
date one tutor had been assigned to each enter- 
ing class, and had taught that class in all its 
subjects for four years. At the instance of 
the Board of Overseers, each tutor thereafter 
taught the same subject, or kindred subjects, 
to all the four classes. The president and the 
three professors of that day had already dealt 
with their several subjects before each suc- 
cessive class j so that all the instruction in the 
College became from that date departmental. 
This reform was as fundamental as the similar 
reform now, made in a high school or acad- 
emy. In the first quarter of the nineteenth 
century, it was the Board of Overseers that 
planted the seeds of the elective system, which 
was to have but a feeble growth for forty 
years. It survived, however, and then throve 
and blossomed. Again, it was the Board of 
Overseers that, in 1826, ordered that the 
president of the University should make to 



CONSTRUCTIVE WORK OF THE OVERSEERS 59 

them an annual report accompanied by a com- 
plete treasurer's statement, the report to cover 
all important acts and events for the year, 
together with remarks on the state of the in- 
stitution, and on the measures recommended 
for its improvement. This report was ordered 
to be printed and laid before the members of 
the Board at the stated meeting in January. 
This order was a piece of first-rate construc- 
tive legislation, and has been obeyed to this 
day with good results to Harvard University 
and American education in general; for the 
president's annual report to the Overseers has 
always described frankly and completely the 
state of the institution, its defects and merits, 
the results of its experiments, its progress, and 
its needs. In so doing, it has put the experi- 
ence of Harvard University at the service 
of all other institutions. Again, in the year 
1866-67, the Board of Overseers, after a long 
interchange of divergent views between the 
President and Fellows and the Board, suc- 
ceeded in introducing an important change in 
the distribution of the income of the general 



60 AN INSPECTING AND CONSENTING BODY 

investments of the University among the funds 
belonging to the College on the one hand, and 
to the professional departments on the other. 
The President and Fellows had long been in 
the habit of allowing 5% on the funds belong- 
ing to the non-College departments, and ap- 
propriating to the College the rest of the 
income of the general investments. The Board 
of Overseers procured the distribution of the 
average income of the general investments to 
all the funds held by the President and Fel- 
lows, after reserving a moderate allowance for 
the expenses incurred in the care and manage- 
ment of the funds. This measure, which was 
not welcome to the President and Fellows of 
the day, has turned out to be a very wise one. 
It has been highly satisfactory to benefactors, 
has prevented the creation of separate boards 
of trustees for special objects at the University, 
and has exerted a distinctly unifying influ- 
ence in the whole University administration. 
No more important improvements in Harvard 
University have been made in the past one 
liundred and fifty years than the four above 



OVERSEEKS REPRESENT PUBLIC OPINION 61 

mentioned, and all four proceeded from the 
Board of Overseers. 

A good example of another mode of action 
of the Overseers is to be found in the aboli- 
tion, in 1886, of the required attendance of the 
students at the religious exercises maintained 
by the University. For nearly two hundred 
and fifty years attendance at numerous re- 
ligious services had been required of all stu- 
dents in Harvard College. The two governing 
boards came very slowly to the abolition of 
that requirement. Beginning in 1873, the 
College Faculty four times declared that, in 
their judgment, attendance at prayers should 
be voluntary. The students had twice peti- 
tioned that the statute which prescribed at- 
tendance be changed. The President and Fel- 
lows were in favor of making the change, 
whenever it should appear that the public 
opinion of educated men, and particularly of 
the Alumni, would sanction it. For ascertain- 
ing the state of public opinion, the President 
and Fellows relied on the Board of Overseers. 
Under the guidance of a committee of the 



62 AN INSPECTING AND CONSENTING BODY 

Board of Overseers, the two governing boards 
first made a more impressive and interesting 
provision for the conduct of religious services 
in Appleton Chapel than the University had 
ever had before. The Plummer Professorship 
(then vacant) was filled, and five preachers to 
the University taken from four denominations 
were appointed for the term of one year, the 
appointments to be renewable indefinitely. To 
this board of six ministers the conduct of the 
Chapel services and the pastoral care of the 
body of students were committed, with a large 
discretion as to their methods of action. This 
board then advised the Corporation and Over- 
seers to abolish required attendance at reli- 
gious exercises; and the necessary change in 
statutes was immediately made. 

The first board of preachers consisted of 
Edward Everett Hale, Phillips Brooks, Alex- 
ander McKenzie, George A. Gordon, and 
Kichard Montague; but Mr. Montague was 
unable to serve because of the failure of his 
health. Messrs. Hale and Brooks were at the 
time members of the Board of Overseers, 



THE SELECTION OF OVERSEERS 63 

where they had taken an influential part in 
the discussion. In this instance the time of 
action in a very important matter was deter- 
mined by the Board of Overseers ; because the 
President and Fellows, the Faculty, the other 
academic bodies, and the Alumni felt that the 
Board fairly represented public opinion in all 
its difPerent shades, and that it would be safe 
to make a great change in a matter which 
easily stirs strong sentiments and passions, 
whenever the Board of Overseers were clearly 
in favor of making it. 

The meetings of the Board give opportu- 
nity for able men engaged in different pro- 
fessions to give utterance to their ideas on 
education in general, or on some special edu- 
cational topic which has interested them. The 
Alumni, who elect the Board, naturally select 
men of letters or science, and men eminent in 
the learned or scientific professions or in busi- 
ness, who have shown public spirit, and devo- 
tion to the interests of the University, and 
of the higher education in general. A Board 
so selected is naturally capable of improving 



64 AN INSPECTING AND CONSENTING BODY 

sometimes the measures which come to them 
from the Corporation. Their rules and habits 
prevent hasty action, and often provide for an 
examination by a committee of the measures 
laid before them. They save the University 
from making changes which, although pro- 
mising and even of demonstrated merit, are 
nevertheless too much in advance of public 
opinion. When the President and Fellows, led 
by the Faculties, are too rapid or too experi- 
mental in their action, the Board of Overseers 
will serve as a brake ; but if the President and 
Fellows become inert or too conservative, the 
Board of Overseers will provide the needed 
stimulation. 

On the whole, the services of the Board of 
Overseers to Harvard University are so varied 
and so great as to suggest strongly the wis- 
dom of procuring some analogous boards for 
purposes of inspection, review, criticism, and 
support in all other American institutions 
of the higher education. Indeed, the history 
of the Harvard Overseers suggests that simi- 
lar boards to inspect, make criticisms and 



ADVICE AND SUPPORT FROM GRADUATES 65 

suggestions, and procure publicity would be 
useful additions to the boards of directors 
■which manage business corporations, and to 
one-chambered municipal governments or com- 
missions. 

The American colleges and universities re- 
ceive a deal of valuable advice and assistance 
from their graduates, not only from individu- 
als, but from the numerous organizations of 
the graduates. These organizations are all the 
more interesting, because they are of purely 
American growth, being a natural adaptation 
of democratic principles to educational insti- 
tutions, and a vigorous expression of the, 
American faith in education of all grades as 
the best means of promoting wise democratic 
government, industrial efficiency, and public 
happiness. As active organizations they have 
nearly all been created within the last fifty 
years. 

The first organization to attain real effi- 
ciency was the permanent organization of what 
is called a college Class, that is, the group of 



66 ALUMNI ORGANIZATIONS 

men who took the first degree in arts or science 
in the same year. This Class organization is 
now maintained not only for social purposes, 
but as a group of men who distinctly propose 
to befriend and support each other in every 
practicable way throughout life, and who also 
intend, as a group, to befriend and support 
the college or university at which they took 
their first degree. Every Class maintains a 
standing committee and a secretary and treas- 
urer. At or near graduation they raise a fund 
the income of which is to be used for future 
festivities and other Class expenses, and is to 
be made over to the college for some good 
purpose when the Class becomes extinct. When 
general subscriptions are undertaken for the 
benefit of their college, every Class organiza- 
tion takes part in the effort, and all the Classes 
vie with each other in making contributions. 
At Harvard College, it is the custom for each 
Class, at the twenty-fifth anniversary of its 
graduation, to make a considerable gift to the 
College ($100,000 or more) for an object se- 
lected by the Class. Every Class tabulates the 



THE COLLEGE CLASS 67 

Vital statistics of the whole group, including 
the dates of marriage, births of children, and 
deaths of members and of their children, and 
also a record of the career of each member of 
the Class. Many Classes keep these records for 
all the men who have ever been members of 
the Class, whether they graduated or not. As 
the Harvard graduating Classes have lately 
increased much in size, the labor of keeping 
these records, and printing them every three 
or five years, has become too great for the 
Class Secretary — presumably a busy man — 
to perform ; so that it has become the custom 
for the Class officers to hire an expert to pre- 
pare the vital statistics of the Class. At the 
Commencement season every Class holds a 
social meeting, and on the third, sixth, tenth, 
and every later quinquennial anniversary of 
graduation, special festivities are held, particu- 
larly on the twenty-fifth and fiftieth anniver- 
saries. At Harvard the wives and children of 
members attend the twenty-fifth anniversary, 
and the celebration lasts for several days. To 
the fiftieth anniversary children and grand- 



68 ALUMNI ORGANIZATIONS 

children are invited ; and, moreover, the Class 
just fifty years out of College entertains the 
members of all older Classes who come to Com- 
mencement. As each Class grows older, the 
surviving members are drawn nearer together, 
and the more interesting becomes the compari- 
son of careers, experiences, achievements, and 
services. Several Harvard Classes have under- 
taken to make photographic albums in which 
the portrait of each member at graduation 
faces the portrait of the same person forty or 
more years later, if he has survived so long. 
These documents are extraordinarily optimis- 
tic, the comparison of the faces at twenty-two 
or twenty-three with the faces at sixty-two or 
sixty-three offering convincing evidence that 
educated men's experience of life develops both 
capacity and character to an extraordinary 
degree. 

The vital statistics of the American College 
Classes, as they accumulate, will supply to the 
statistician a large body of interesting materi- 
als ; the photographic albums will demonstrate 
the continuous and prolonged good effect of 



ALUMNI ASSOCIATIONS 69 

an education which occupies from a quarter to 
a third of the entire span of life ; and the re- 
cords of the careers of the graduates will sup- 
ply the best possible evidence of the efficiency 
and usefulness of the institution at which they 
were trained. All these Class activities are 
highly desirable in all colleges and universi- 
ties, and with appropriate modifications are 
universally practicable. 

Next to the Class organization comes the 
organization of the association which embraces 
all the Alumni of a college, that is, all the men 
who took their first degree of arts and science 
at the institution, some of whom may take a 
higher degree or degrees in arts and sciences, 
or a professional degree. It has been the cus- 
tom at Harvard, as at other American institu- 
tions, for the graduates of the professional 
schools to maintain Alumni associations of 
their own, as, for instance, an organization of 
all graduates and students of the Law School ; 
so that four, five, or more Alumni associations 
may be created from the graduates in the 
different departments of the same university. 



70 ALUMNI ASSOCIATIONS 

The objects of all these Alumni associations 
are, however, essentially the same. They keep 
in touch with all Alumni of the department 
whose name they bear, keep their addresses, 
and prepare lists showing the geographical 
distribution of the Alumni by states and cities. 
At a large university which graduates many 
hundred men each year, it is a difficult task to 
keep these address-lists valid. A small number 
of men fail to communicate with the secretary 
of the association to which they ought to be- 
long, and after a time are lost to view. The 
address-lists serve several purposes. In the first 
place they enable the officers of the association 
to keep in communication with the men whose 
addresses are recorded. Secondly, they enable 
the administrative officers of the university to 
keep graduates of the university in all depart- 
ments supplied with printed information con- 
cerning the growth of the university, the 
changes in its methods, and the additions to 
its resources. Thirdly, the geographical lists 
enable the graduates of any college who have 
settled in any particular district or region of 



GATHERINGS AT COMMENCEMENT 71 

the country to find each other out, and come 
together. 

The various Alumni associations at Harvard 
University recognize early, and then help to 
bring to public knowledge, improvements in 
their several Departments, as well as needs, 
and they then confirm and settle the educa- 
tional changes by embodying their results in 
their own constitutions and modes of social 
action. At Commencement time most of them 
hold meetings which bring together large bod- 
ies of professional men interested not only in 
meeting each other, but in promoting the wel- 
fare of their several Departments, and in up- 
holding and advancing the ethical standards of 
their several callings. The gathering at Com- 
mencement of the Association of the Alumni 
of Harvard College, which now includes grad- 
uates of the Scientific School and holders of 
the degree of Master of Arts or Science and 
of Doctor of Philosophy or Science, is always 
a noteworthy gathering, which by its public 
proceedings and its hospitalities to distin- 
guished guests adds to the dignity and prestige 



72 ALUMNI ASSOCIATIONS 

of the University. This association now main- 
tains a paid secretary with an office and staff 
in the business centre of Boston, in order to 
be of service to visiting Alumni, in both busi- 
ness and social ways. This new provision is an 
outcome of the democratic and national qual- 
ity of the University, and of the distribution of 
the residences of the Alumni over the whole 
country, and over great areas beyond. It marks 
also the purpose of the Alumni to cooperate 
with each other throughout life in the pro- 
motion of the interests of the University, of 
higher education, and of public serviceableness 
of all sorts. 

The next form of organization is the local 
club, composed of the graduates of a single 
institution who live in one place, as, for ex- 
ample, of the graduates of Harvard, or Dart- 
mouth, or Michigan, living in or near New 
York City, or in or near Chicago, or in the 
State of Kentucky, or in the State of Califor- 
nia. These local organizations can exert a 
strong influence in favor of the university with 
which its members were connected, provided 



LOCAL COLLEGE CLUBS 73 

that they prove to be possessed of enthusiasm, 
mutual good-wiJl, and public spirit. They can 
add to the security and happiness of the recent 
graduates who flock year by year to the great 
cities. They can easily promote the interests 
of the universities to which they are grateful 
by instituting scholarships at the college or 
university of their love, for which scholarships 
young men from the locality which the club 
represents have a preference. Such clubs can 
also debate actively new policies which are 
under discussion at their college or university, 
and express their opinions thereon by resolu- 
tion adopted in public meetings after discus- 
sion. Their members can inspire each other to 
rendering good public service in the municipal, 
state, or national administrations, and to ser- 
viceableness to the communities in which they 
live. The local clubs can be effective in re- 
cruiting the colleges or universities to which 
they are severally attached, by endeavoring to 
improve the programmes of the best secondary 
schools in their neighborhood, and taking an 
interest in the bright pupils of those schools. 



74 ASSOCIATION OF HARVARD CLUBS 

They can also give information about the 
terms of admission and the necessary expenses 
at their several colleges. Among the members 
of these local clubs the diversity of age is very 
great — all the way from twenty to twenty- 
three up to seventy to eighty — a fact which 
sometimes makes their social meetings rather 
hard to conduct in an enjoyable way ; yet this 
very diversity of age contributes much to the 
good influence of the clubs. The achievements 
of the elders inspire the juniors, and the older 
men get interested in the younger, and help 
them on by advice and influence. 

A considerable number of Harvard Clubs, 
most of which are situated between the Al- 
leghanies and the Rocky Mountains, have 
united in an Association of Harvard Clubs 
which holds large, animated, annual meetings 
by delegates, at which college policies are dis- 
cussed, the condition and prospects of the 
various clubs are compared, and desirable 
candidates for election to the Board of Over- 
seers are mentioned and discussed in private. 
At these representative meetings of Harvard 



ADDRESS-LISTS OF LIVING ALUMNI 75 

Alumni gathered from a large area, officers 
and active friends of the University have an 
opportunity to be heard. 

The university administration itself can as- 
sist in the maintenance of these organizations 
of its Alumni by publishing periodically the 
catalogue of all its graduates from the begin- 
ning, and a list of the present addresses of all 
living Alumni. Every American college or uni- 
versity performs the first function ; but com- 
paratively few perform the second, although 
the second is the more effective for promoting 
the influence and increasing the resources of 
a university. Some institutions have refrained 
from issuing such a list, or delayed so doing, 
for fear that these address-lists, if printed, 
would be used in an annoying way by diligent 
advertisers through circulars and letters. The 
demonstrated usefulness of the lists for right- 
ful purposes has, however, overcome this appre- 
hension. 

The natural interest of older Alumni in help- 
ing the younger is now utilized in a systematic 
way by colleges and universities which main- 



76 AN APPOINTMENTS OFFICE 

tain offices devoted to securing appointments 
and promotions for their graduates. This very 
useful sort of bureau was first copied by Har- 
vard University from Oxford University, and 
thence spread into other American institutions. 
The method is not yet fully comprehended 
among American college graduates, but it is 
so natural and helpful a method that it is sure 
to become general. At first the profession 
served by the Harvard Appointments Office 
was almost exclusively that of teaching ; but 
in a few years the work of the office came to 
cover a great variety of professions including 
business. The same office can readily provide 
various employments for undergraduates, and 
so make easier the successful passage through 
college of young men of limited means. Both 
these functions are obviously democratic in a 
high degree. They enable well-educated young 
men who have neither money nor helpful 
family connections to obtain high-grade em- 
ployments, and rapid promotions therein, on 
the strength of their college records, and with 
the help of the acquaintances they made in 



UNIVERSITY PUBLICATIONS 77 

college. They are ofte^n equally useful, how- 
ever, to sons of well-to-do families who are 
seeking employments with which their older 
friends have never been connected. 

The interest and affection of an institu- 
tion's graduates may be utilized to its advan- 
tage and that of education in general through 
the graduates' support of publications which 
record all important events at the institution, 
commemorate the achievements of its grad- 
uates, describe the athletic games and contests 
in which its undergraduates take part, and 
give interesting accounts of the acquisitions 
at its museums, the investigations in its labora- 
tories, and the publications of its teachers. At 
Harvard University, for example, a Graduates' 
Magazine, issued quarterly, an official Gazette, 
and an unofficial Bulletin, issued weekly, are 
maintained through the annual subscriptions 
of the Alumni ; and all three publications are 
highly serviceable to the University. 

Two comparatively new universities — 
Johns Hopkins and Chicago — have paid es- 
pecial attention to the issue by the university 



78 ALUMNI INFLUENCE 

itself of learned publications in considerable 
variety and volume, quite surpassing in this 
respect the earlier efforts of some older Ameri- 
can universities. Such publications undoubt- 
edly strengthen a university, and promote the 
progress of letters and science. Since they are 
costly and pecuniarily unremunerative, they 
are good objects of endowment. 

Since many graduates of the principal 
American universities are connected with the 
public press as editors or contributors, univer- 
sity doings and events are frequently dealt with 
by the public press in a friendly way, with the 
distinct object of strengthening the universities 
in the estimation of the public. Most univer- 
sity administrators have had occasion to study 
the problem of legitimate advertising ; but 
few, if any, have reached any clear conclusion 
on this difficult subject. It is extremely doubt- 
ful if any of the ordinary forms of advertising 
do a university any good. It is the general 
reputation of a university, its literary and sci- 
entific activity, and the achievements of its 
graduates which commend it to young men 



THE DESIRE FOR MORE STUDENTS 79 

and women, and to their parents ; and these 
things cannot be set forth by the university 
itself in an ordinary advertisement. Public at- 
tention must, however, be called to them over 
wide areas of country, since otherwise they will 
not be brought to the notice of teachers, super- 
intendents of schools, families, and the eligible 
youth ; hence the usefulness of the university 
publications maintained by graduates or by 
the university itself, and of all the descriptive 
contributions to the public press by interesting 
and interested writers. 

The American universities have always and 
everywhere been desirous of increasing the 
number of their students; and this is a true 
instinct of university governors in a demo- 
cratic country. A university ought to desire to 
serve all classes and conditions of men, and 
not a single class or but one condition. More- 
over, the serviceableness of the university to 
the community is increased by increasing the 
number of its students; unless, indeed, the 
university admits students without suitable 
preparation, and by so doing injures itself 



80 ALUMNI INFLUENCE 

and tlie secondary schools wliich underlie it. In 
short, in a democratic society, it is important 
that the university should serve all classes, and 
therefore command the respect and affection 
of all classes, else its pecuniary resources will 
not be so secure as they ought to be, and it 
will be difficult for it to obtain the new re- 
sources which in the changing condition of 
the professions and industries it will be sure 
to need. 



Ill 

THE UNIVERSITY FACULTY 

For determining the educational policy of a 
seat of learning the faculties are the most im- 
portant bodies in the entire institution. The 
trustees being ordinarily only men of general 
culture and trustworthy character, presumably 
interested more or less in all branches of learn- 
ing, but expert in none, it devolves upon the 
faculties of the several departments of a uni- 
versity to discern, recommend, and carry out 
the educational policies of the institution. 
Under ordinary conditions a university has 
need of at least ^Ye faculties, namely, — a fac- 
ulty for arts and sciences, and faculties for 
divinity, law, medicine, and applied science. 
There are many examples of the creation of 
separate faculties in addition to these ^Ye, as, 
for instance, a faculty for agriculture, for en- 
gineering by itself, or for the fine arts ; but 
the sciences on which agriculture depends all 



82 THE UNIVERSITY FACULTY 

come under the head of applied science, just 
as engineering does, and the fine arts should 
certainly make part of the instruction given 
by the faculty of arts and sciences. 

The five indispensable faculties are very 
unlike. The faculty of arts and sciences in 
a broadly developed university will necessarily 
be large, and its individual members will prob- 
ably have a thorough knowledge of only one 
or two out of the numerous departments of 
instruction within the faculty. The mathe- 
maticians may often have little sympathy with, 
or knowledge of, the language departments, 
and will be closely af&liated only with the de- 
partments of physics, chemistry, mechanics, 
and astronomy. The professors of history will 
probably know little, and perhaps care little, 
about the scientific departments ; but will 
maintain rather close relations with the de- 
partments of government and economics. Dis- 
tinguished men and admirable teachers in such 
a faculty may easily know nothing to speak 
of about more than half of the subjects of 
instruction dealt with by their faculty. 



DIVERSITY OF THE FACULTIES 83 

It is very different in the faculty of law, 
which in American universities devotes itself 
chiefly to court-made law and the training of 
practitioners. There every teacher will know 
a great deal about the work of every other 
teacher in the faculty, and have a good under- 
standing of every other teacher's method and 
mode of thought. In that faculty it is possi- 
ble for one professor to teach in the course of 
twenty-five years nearly all the subjects taught 
in the school ; and it is feasible for a professor 
well advanced in life to change his subjects 
completely, abandoning all the subjects he 
has taught for twenty years or more, and 
taking up a new set. A faculty of law there- 
fore resembles what is called a department in 
the faculty of arts and sciences; for in the 
latter faculty the members of any given de- 
partment are usually acquainted with the 
whole field of the department, and with the 
work of each member of it. The faculty of 
law will have very slight connection with any 
other faculty, unless, indeed, like a European 
law faculty, it takes up the general subject of 



84 THE UNIVERSITY FACULTY 

jurisprudence, and such topics as Roman 
lawj constitutional law, and international law, 
which are appropriate also to the faculty of 
arts and sciences. 

The divinity faculty, on the other hand, 
unless unfortunately devoted chiefly to dog- 
matic denominational instruction, will have 
many and intimate connections with the fac- 
ulty of arts and sciences; so much so, that 
many courses of instruction offered by profes- 
sors of divinity are just as good for students 
in arts as they are for students in divinity, 
and, conversely, many courses offered by pro- 
fessors in the faculty of arts and sciences will 
be perfectly suitable for students of divinity, 
such, for example, as courses in philosophy, 
ethics, history, sociology, the languages of 
the scriptures, and the history of the bibli- 
cal peoples and of the great religions of the 
world. 

The faculty of medicine has two quite dis- 
tinct functions. First, to train thoroughly prac- 
titioners of medicine and surgery ; secondly, to 
advance medical science and preventive medi- 



DIVEESITY OF THE FACULTIES 85 

cine. It is, however, almost exclusively a fac- 
ulty of applied biology, although it also 
utilizes fields of physics and chemistry which 
lie outside of biology. This faculty is, of 
course, intimately related to the biological de- 
partments of the faculty of arts and sciences, 
because pure zoology and botany make inces- 
sant contributions to applied biology; and 
it has many affiliations with the faculty of 
applied science; but its connections with the 
other faculties are but slight. 

The faculty of applied science has a differ- 
ent temper or spirit from that which prevails 
in the scientific departments of the faculty of 
arts and sciences. It is bent on teaching useful 
and profitable applications of all the sciences, 
and is apt to be dissatisfied with the modes of 
instruction in the pure sciences, including 
mathematics, under the faculty of arts and 
sciences, unless a great deal of attention is 
devoted day by day to applications and to 
practice in those applications. 

It is natural and desirable that members of 
the divinity faculty and of the faculty of ap- 



86 THE UNIVERSITY FACULTY 

plied science should belong also to the faculty 
of arts and sciences ; but members of the fac- 
culties of law and medicine rarely belong to 
any other faculty. 

Two of these five faculties are distinguished 
from the others by the fact that many of their 
members act both as teachers and as practition- 
ers. Thus all the clinical teachers in a medical 
school are active practitioners, — always in 
hospitals, and often in both hospitals and 
private practice. In a school of applied science 
it is common for the teachers to give part of 
their time to commercial designing and con- 
sulting; and this mixture of functions is on 
the whole desirable, because it keeps the teach- 
ers well acquainted with the present conditions 
and needs of the industries which their teach- 
ing ought to serve. Some of the teachers in 
a law school may also combine teaching with 
practice. This double function resembles the 
double function of teachers of economics, 
government, and business administration, who 
divide their time between teaching and author- 
ship, or between teaching and giving advice 



THE MEMBERSHIP OF A FACULTY 87 

on questions relating to the public service or 
industrial administration. Indeed^in all depart- 
ments it is desirable that university teachers 
keep in touch with the outer world of liter- 
ature, science, and art, and contribute not 
only to the progress of the arts and sciences, 
but also to the diffusion of knowledge among 
the educated public outside the confines of 
the university. 

To arrive at the right rules to govern mem- 
bership of a university faculty is obviously a 
matter of the first importance. Shall the fac- 
ulty be composed of the full professors in all 
departments, or only of the heads of depart- 
ments ? Shall it include assistant professors ? 
In these days a large part of the instruction 
given in well-organized universities is contrib- 
uted by comparatively young men, who are 
called instructors, tutors, or preceptors. Shall 
they, too, be full members of a faculty? If as- 
sistant professors and instructors be included, 
they will probably outnumber the full profes- 
sors, and may therefore have the prevailing 



88 THE UNIVERSITY FACULTY 

voice in determining the policy of the univer- 
sity. In all well-organized and comprehensive 
universities, the number of instructors, demon- 
strators, and assistants will greatly exceed the 
number of professors and assistant professors, 
and many of these instructors, demonstrators, 
and assistants will be men who are on trial, or 
who have not yet determined to give their 
lives chiefly to teaching and research. It does 
not seem reasonable that the policy of a uni- 
versity should be determined by the votes of 
young men whose connection with the uni- 
versity may be brief, and who have not yet 
decided to be teachers. Membership in a fac- 
ulty should therefore be limited to professors, 
associate professors, and assistant professors, 
and to those instructors who have received 
appointments without limit of time. 

Under this rule a majority in any large 
faculty of arts and sciences is likely to consist 
of comparatively young men who are not sure 
to advance to the position of full professor. 
It is impossible, even in a large staff, that all 
assistant professors should be promoted to 



YOUNG MEN DESIRABLE IN A FACULTY 89 

be professors, and that all instructors ap- 
pointed without limit of time should be pro- 
moted to be assistant professors. Many of these 
younger men must necessarily go into the ser- 
vice of other institutions, — schools, colleges, 
and universities. In this way the influence of 
the university is extended and its serviceable- 
ness increased. 

It is of the utmost importance that every 
faculty contain enough young men to bring 
forward in debate the views and feelings of 
the recent college generations. To have its 
administration fall chiefly into the hands of 
elderly men is a grave misfortune for any uni- 
versity. There is always good work that vet- 
erans who retain their physical and mental 
alertness can do; but the control of a univer- 
sity's policy should not be confided to them 
alone. A small college is often in more danger 
of having an old faculty than a large college, 
for the reason that some of the teachers grow 
old in their places without having had the op- 
portunity of going into the service of other in- 
stitutions, and vacancies which might be filled 



90 THE UNIVERSITY FACULTY 

by young men occur but seldom. This diffi- 
culty has been relieved or removed of late years 
in some small colleges, because the larger and 
richer institutions have acquired the habit of 
calling into their service comparatively young 
men who have proved their merit in good 
small colleges. The small college is thus en- 
abled to recruit its faculty with a series of 
young men of promise, though not of proved 
performance. It is natural, but not wise, for a 
college or university to recruit its faculties 
chiefly from its own graduates, — natural, be- 
cause these graduates are well known to the 
selecting authorities, since they have been 
under observation for years ; unwise, because 
breeding in and in has grave dangers for a 
university, as also for technical schools and 
naval and military academies. 

A university president, or a selecting com- 
mittee, in search of a new professor, or of new 
professors, has means of forming a judgment 
which are fairly trustworthy, if patiently col- 
lected and sifted. In the first place, there is 
the candidate's record as a student at his col- 



CRITERIA FOR SELECTING PROFESSORS 91 

lege or university ; secondly, his reputation as 
a teacher, wherever he may have been em- 
ployed ; thirdly, his activity .in the learned 
societies with which he has been connected ; 
fourthly, his productiveness as an investigator 
and author ; and fifthly, his general repute as 
a man of character and influence. Experienced 
of&cials pay but scanty attention to testimo- 
nials and letters of recommendation, partic- 
ularly if they have been forwarded through 
the candidate or procured by him. Americans 
are apt to be too charitable and good-natured 
when writing letters of recommendation. They 
are also fond of superlatives, and are too apt 
to deal only with merits, omitting defects, 
when they write testimonials at the request of 
a candidate. The prudent selecting official or 
board will therefore be careful about giving 
weight to testimonials, and will greatly prefer 
to see and talk with the candidate himself 
face to face, except in the case of a man whose 
character and professional standing are well 
known and unquestionable. 

Within twenty years past, numerous learned 



92 THE UNIVERSITY FACULTY 

societies have arisen in the United States, each 
of which is devoted to some special branch of 
knowledge, such as the classics, pure mathe- 
matics, engineering, chemistry, physics, archi- 
tecture, landscape architecture, forestry, pedi- 
atrics, and psychiatry. To the annual meetings 
of these societies men come from all parts of 
the country, and spend a few days together in 
earnest discussion of topics in which they have 
a common interest. The professor, or professors, 
of these several subjects in any one university 
will gradually have opportunities to measure 
and weigh all the other active members of the 
same society, and particularly to see and hear 
the younger members of the society. Much 
valuable information is, therefore, to be ob- 
tained through these meetings of specialists 
concerning candidates for teachers' places in 
the colleges and universities of the country. 
At these meetings much can be learnt about 
the personality of the men who come to them. 
The whole meeting will learn that such a 
one is high-minded and winning, and a mas- 
ter of his subject, and that such another 



KECRUITING A FACULTY 93 

is rude and unattractive, though doubtless 
able. 

In selecting university teachers, young or 
old, it is always a question what sort of quali- 
fication should have most influence on the se- 
lection, — knowledge of a subject, capacity to 
expound it in an interesting manner, published 
works, success as an investigator, or the total 
personality, including manners and customs, 
temper, bearing, and quickness of sympathy. 
In every case there must be a balancing of 
these different qualities, which are rarely com- 
bined in a single individual, and a comparison 
with like balances in other candidates. 

That university is fortunate whose faculties 
have been recruited in a considerable variety 
of ways ; but first, by advancing young men 
who are graduates of the institution through 
all stages of the service, beginning with the 
lowest. This process should require three or 
four years to be spent in professional study 
after receiving the Bachelor's degree; then 
three or four years of service on annual ap- 
pointments to subordinate places; next, as 



94 THE UNIVERSITY FACULTY 

many years in the position of instructor ap- 
pointed without limit of time ; and next^ five 
or ten years of service as assistant professor 
before the grade of full professor is at last 
attained. It may therefore take the young 
graduate in arts from fifteen to twenty years 
to obtain a full professorship, and it will be 
from six to eight years after his graduation 
as a Bachelor before he gets an appointment 
which commits him to teaching and investi- 
gating as his life-work. The rapidity of his 
advancement will depend, first, on the number 
of vacancies which happen to occur in the 
upper part of the department to which he 
belongs, and secondly, on the chance that the 
institution with which he is connected will make 
a rapid growth. Both these favorable chances 
have frequently occurred together in the expe- 
rience of young men who have gone into uni- 
versity work in the United States within the 
past thirty years. 

The second mode of recruiting the univer- 
sity staff is to discover and make proposals to 
men still young who have distinguished them- 



RECRUITING A FACULTY 95 

selves in the service of other institutions. The 
larger institution does not need to offer such 
men full professorships. They can ordinarily 
be obtained for assistant professorships, or 
even for instructorships without limit of time. 
Such persons are not taken at once into the 
permanent staff of the university which invites 
them. They receive what may be called pro- 
bationary appointments, and if they do not 
succeed in such places, after a reasonable time, 
the university is under no obligation to con- 
tinue them in its service. 

The third mode of recruiting a faculty is 
to invite to full professorships men of proved 
capacity, industry, and intellectual productive- 
ness. To such men the university commits 
itself for life. 

All these ways ought to be used in recruiting 
any university faculty, and all three are com- 
monly used except in the faculty of medicine. 
That faculty is affected by a peculiar and very 
unfortunate set of considerations in regard to 
its recruitment. A medical school is ordinarily 
situated at some considerable centre of popu- 



96 THE UNIVERSITY FACULTY 

lation, where hospitals have been provided for 
the treatment of the sick and wounded. These 
hospitals are usually administered each by its 
board of trustees^ and this board feels itself 
to exist for the hospital alone, and is distrust- 
ful of the claims of medical education or of 
medical and surgical research. The hospital's 
medical and surgical staff is ordinarily selected 
by the board of trustees without reference 
to the capacity of its members as teachers. 
They are selected for unusual capacity in treat- 
ing the sick and wounded. Nevertheless, the 
only men who can fitly hold clinical professor- 
ships in a medical school are men who have 
access to large hospitals capable of providing 
them with the cases of disease or injury which 
must serve as material for their teaching. 
The medical school, desiring to appoint a pro- 
fessor of surgery or obstetrics, for example, is 
limited in its choice to the men who hold hos- 
pital services for at least a part of the year in 
the city or town in which the school is situated. 
It is not free to call the most distinguished 
surgeon or obstetrician that the country con- 



INDUCEMENTS TO AN ACADEMIC LIFE 97 

tains; because it cannot offer the newcomer 
a hospital service. This is the reason that the 
conduct of a great hospital has become in 
some universities an indispensable function 
of the faculty of medicine, in spite of the fact 
that the conduct of a hospital is enormously 
expensive, and requires an administrative staff 
quite distinct from that of the medical school. 
Other universities have had the good fortune 
to make serviceable alliances with independent 
bodies of hospital trustees, who have realized 
that the advancement of medical and surgi- 
cal teaching and research is a fundamental 
interest of hospitals as well as of universities 
and States. 

The motives which induce suitable young 
men to devote themselves to an academic Hf e, 
and therefore to become members of a college 
or university faculty, are somewhat different 
from those which impel young men to enter 
the learned and scientific professions or to 
seek business careers. Those professions and 
business careers offer large money prizes. 



98 THE UNIVERSITY FACULTY 

although the general average of income in 
them is by no means high. In the United 
States the profession of teaching and scientific 
research offers absolutely no money prizes, 
and the average annual income of the univer- 
sity teacher is sure to be moderate. Germany 
offers exceptional payment to brilliant teachers 
of staple university subjects which are indis- 
pensable to large groups of students, gives 
generous pecuniary rewards to successful in- 
vestigators in applied science, chemical, physi- 
cal, or biological, and confers valued titles 
and decorations on her leading scholars in all 
departments. No such practices have ever ob- 
tained in the United States, and it is hard to 
imagine how they could be introduced under 
the democratic regime. The young American 
who chooses a university career must then 
abandon all expectation of riches, and of the 
sort of luxuries which only wealth can pro- 
cure. What he may reasonably expect is a se- 
cure income, a life-tenure, long vacations, the 
gratification of his intellectual tastes, good 
fellowship in study, teaching, and research, 



UNIVEKSITY SALARIES ARE SMALL 99 

plenty of books, and a dignified though simple 
mode of life. To young men who grow up in 
humble circumstances, the probable income of 
a college professor sometimes looks large ; but 
to the sons of well-to-do families it always 
looks small, and, on the average, the college' 
or university salary in the United States is 
really small in comparison with the intellectual 
outlook of the recipients and their reasonable 
needs. Undoubtedly college and university 
salaries need to be raised above their present 
level in the United States ; but it should be 
distinctly understood that the profession can 
never be properly recruited by holding out 
pecuniary inducements. In drawing good men 
from one institution to another, the prevailing 
inducements are apt to be, not increase of 
salary, but wider companionship, better access 
to books, better schools for the children, a 
wholesomer life for the family, more social 
and educational advantages, and the general 
prestige of the inviting institution. That insti- 
tution is fortunate which attracts to its service 
young men fr^m all conditions of life. The 



100 THE UNIVERSITY FACULTY 

recent tendency of sons of well-to-do, and even 
rich, families, to go into the ministry, the 
medical profession, academic life, and the pub- 
lic service, is one in which all patriots may 
well rejoice. Such young men, if they have 
intellectual ambition, and the needed capacity 
for teaching and investigation, contribute very 
much to the total wisdom and efficiency of any 
university faculty. 

In spite of the fact that professorships are 
ordinarily held for life in a well-managed uni- 
versity, the rate at which the membership of 
a faculty changes is much more rapid than is 
generally supposed. The larger the proportion 
of assistant professors and instructors in any 
faculty, the more rapid will be the changes ; 
because assistant professorships are best made 
terminable at stated periods, and instructors 
frequently win promotion in other institutions 
than their own. In twenty-five years nearly 
two thirds of an active faculty may be re- 
placed, and more than half in twenty years. 
The existence of a system of retiring allow- 
ances, such as the Carnegie Foundation now 



MANY ANNUAL APPOINTMENTS 101 

provides, tends to make the replacement of a 
large staff more rapid than it used to be before 
retiring allowances were provided. It is not at 
all uncommon for one fifth of the members of 
a faculty to disappear within five years. These 
facts indicate that there is no difficulty in 
keeping a faculty young on the average, in 
spite of the fact that long tenures and life- 
service are the rule in well-managed univer- 
sities. 

It is of great importance that there should 
be a large body of young men on a univer- 
sity's staff who hold only annual appointments. 
In these places young men have the oppor- 
tunity to prove their capacity as teachers and 
advanced students, and, on the other hand, the 
university by carefully observing the young 
men who hold annual appointments can select 
the most promising men to be instructors with- 
out limit of time. These selections ought in 
practice to be made by the departments in 
which the annually appointed instructors work, 
that is, by the body of professors, assistant 
professors, and instructors without limit of 



102 THE UNIVERSITY FACULTY 

time, who are members of a single department 
like history, mathematics, or physics. These 
persons really know the capacities and char- 
acters of the annual appointees ; for they have 
become intimate with them as undergraduates, 
and they also see them at work as assistants 
and annually appointed instructors. It is im- 
possible that the president or the board of 
trustees should know these young men ; so that 
the authority and responsibility for the selec- 
tion are best placed with the departments that 
have the necessary knowledge of the candi- 
dates. 

In recruiting a university's staff, a long 
period of probation for all candidates, who rise 
from the ranks and advance gradually towards 
a full professorship, is necessary, and it is 
desirable that this long period of probation 
should cover the period within which marriage 
is probable. Marriage is quite as apt to affect 
either favorably or unfavorably the efficiency 
and general usefulness of a university teacher, 
as of professional and business men in any 
other line. It is a good deal safer to give a life 



EECRUITING A FACULTY 103 

office to a married man on whom marriage has 
proved to have a good effect, than to a single 
man who may shortly be married with un- 
certain results. 

An interesting question with regard to the 
recruiting of a faculty by calling proved men 
from other institutions to full professorships 
is the limit of age beyond which such calls are 
inexpedient. Opinions and practices differ 
widely in this matter ; but general experience 
in several different nations seems to indicate 
that the most vigorous and productive period 
of a teacher's and investigator's life is from 
twenty-five to forty-five ; although there are 
many cases in which a great student continues 
to develop after forty-five the corollaries or 
consequences of the principles which he con- 
ceived and first apphed at a much earlier age. 
Accordingly, a university which calls to its 
service a man over forty-five takes the chance 
of getting a man of declining rather than 
of mounting efficiency. The same principle 
applies to university administrative officers. 
They should begin young, and attain their 



104 THE UNIVERSITY FACULTY 

highest rank while their mental and moral 
efficiency is still mounting. These rules are 
necessarily qualified by the fact that some 
exceptional men continue to exhibit mental 
elasticity and vigor unusually late in life. 
Nevertheless, a university which counts on 
such exceptions will run serious risks, and 
occasionally pay heavy penalties for venture- 
someness in this respect. An institution eli- 
gible for Carnegie Foundation pensions can 
prudently invite rather older men to its service. 

A competent faculty having been created 
on sound principles of selection and promo- 
tion, the question next to be discussed is what 
a faculty's functions ought to be. As good a 
definition as exists of the functions of a fac- 
ulty is to be found in the Statutes of Har- 
vard University, Section YI, in which it is 
stated that each of the Schools of the Uni- 
versity is ^^ under the immediate charge of a 
faculty." This phrase means in the practice of 
Harvard University that the several faculties 
have immediate charge of the requirements 



FUNCTIONS OF A FACULTY 105 

for admission ; of the courses of instruction 
provided; of the daily demands upon both 
teachers and students ; of the times and sea- 
sons of university work during term-time ; of 
the conditions on which degrees are conferred ; 
and of the government of the students in all 
respects. Each faculty lays down the rules to 
which instructors and students must conform, 
and each faculty has power to define the pen- 
alties for infringement of these rules, and to 
apply them. In order to discharge these ex- 
tensive functions, each faculty has a dean at 
its head, and a secretary, and is authorized to 
delegate any of its powers relating to ordinary 
matters of administration and discipline to 
standing committees which prepare its busi- 
ness, or act with full power on matters con- 
cerning which clear precedents have been 
firmly established. In institutions to which 
large numbers of students resort, and which 
offer instruction in great variety, a faculty 
tends to become a large body; and since large 
bodies are ill adapted for the discharge of ad- 
ministrative functions in detail, this power to 



106 THE UNIVERSITY FACULTY 

delegate its functions to administrative offi- 
cers and boards, or committees, is essential to 
the efficiency of the faculty. A wise faculty 
will, however, keep in its own hands a firm 
control over its officers and committees, and 
will itself lay down all the general lines of 
educational policy. 

From time to time questions of policy come 
before a faculty which obviously have a direct 
pecuniary bearing. Thus the raising of the 
terms of admission to any department of a 
university may affect the resort of students, 
and therefore the receipts from students, 
particularly in an institution which depends 
largely on tuition-fees. On such subjects the 
faculty should invariably send their recom- 
mendations to the board of trustees before 
publishing them, in order that the body re- 
sponsible for the pecuniary welfare of the uni- 
versity should have opportunity to consider 
and approve, or disapprove, the proposed mea- 
sures. All measures which affect the ordinary 
period of residence for a degree given by the 
university, or which make it more difficult, or 



RELATIONS OF FACULTY AND TRUSTEES 107 

less difficult, to obtain a degree, are measures 
having pecuniary significance. So are pro- 
posals to add new branches of instruction, or 
to increase the amount of instruction offered 
in old departments, unless the faculty sees its 
way to procure more instruction without in- 
creasing the staff, and therefore the total 
amount of salaries. In general, new proposals 
which might affect strongly the serviceable- 
ness of a university, or the feeling towards 
it of its Alumni, the State, or the public at 
large, ought not to be put in force by a fac- 
ulty without previous consultation with the 
trustees. 

There is one matter of etiquette concerning 
the relations between a faculty and a board 
of trustees which has some importance with 
reference to a faculty's sense of responsibility, 
but is not always observed. An individual 
member of a faculty should not approach a 
member or members of the board of trustees 
with opinions of his own in opposition to an 
official opinion already conveyed to the trus- 
tees by the majority of the faculty to which 



108 THE UNIVERSITY FACULTY 

the professor belongs. If minority opinions 
existing within the faculty deserve or need to 
be expressed to the board of trustees, they 
should be forwarded by the faculty itself as 
minority opinions. In serious emergencies this 
rule admits of exceptions; but, in general, 
single members of a faculty should strictly 
observe it out of respect for the influence and 
authority of the faculty. 

The large faculty of arts and sciences, large 
because of the multitude of subjects of instruc- 
tion which it deals with, is necessarily sub- 
divided into departments by subject, such as 
the classics, the modern languages, history, 
government, physics, geology, architecture, 
fine arts, and so forth. Within each depart- 
ment the interests of its members are homo- 
geneous and accordant ; and each department 
is naturally ambitious to enlarge its opera- 
tions, and win more and more of the attention 
and time of an increasing number of students. 
The faculty should exercise a vigilant watch- 
fulness over all its own departments, and 
endeavor to keep their development propor- 



NORMAL NUMBER OF WEEKLY EXERCISES 109 

tionate and moderate, and should not allow 
any department to urge its needs and wishes 
directly on the board of trustees, at least until 
they have been examined and approved by 
the faculty. One of the standing committees 
of every faculty should be a committee on in- 
struction, whose function is to examine and 
report on all propositions which come from 
departments concerning courses of instruction. 
A very important function of a faculty is 
to determine the normal number of weekly 
exercises for which each registered student 
shall be responsible. This number is naturally 
different in different schools or divisions of 
the university, as, for instance, in the under- 
graduate schools on the one hand, and the 
graduate schools on the other. And, again, 
attendance on fifteen hours a week in one 
institution may not be a greater task than 
attendance on ten in another, everything de- 
pending on the standard of work by the 
student for each weekly appointment. The 
total labor of the student per week may be 
greater at one institution which requires at- 



110 THE UNIVERSITY FACULTY 

tendance at ten exercises a week than at 
another which requires attendance at fifteen. 
At each institution the faculty is the only 
competent body to determine the most expe- 
dient number of weekly exercises to be at- 
tended by each student; because it is the 
only body which can know what the standard 
of labor per exercise is within its own pro- 
vince. 

It is for a faculty to determine what amount 
of control it will exercise over the methods of 
instruction adopted in its several departments, 
or by the professors, assistant professors, in- 
structors, and tutors. As a rule, tutors and 
instructors are responsible in regard to their 
subjects and methods of teaching to their 
several departments, and the departments are 
responsible to the faculty. The freedom of a 
teacher to give instruction in just the method 
which suits him being very precious, a faculty 
cannot wisely interfere often with the teach- 
ing methods of individual teachers. Never- 
theless, a faculty can properly criticise the 
results of any professor's, or other instructor's, 



FACULTY'S CONTROL OVER INSTRUCTORS 111 

"work as they appear in certain easily visible 
ways. Among such visible evidences are dis- 
order in a professor's lecture-room ; the resort 
of obviously incompetent or uninterested stu- 
dents to his courses ; examination papers of a 
trivial or pedantic sort ; uniform high grades 
or uniform low grades returned by the pro- 
fessor; an extraordinary number of distinc- 
tions earned in his courses ; or an extraordi- 
nary number of rejections and failures. These 
are legitimate subjects of inquiry by a faculty 
committee or by faculty officials, and can be 
dealt with by a faculty without impairing 
just academic freedom. The knowledge that 
this power of revision resides in a faculty is a 
valuable control over individual eccentricities. 
The faculties in some American universities 
exercise the power to nominate to the board 
of trustees new professors, the trustees as a 
rule accepting these nominations. This power 
of nomination has generally been acquired by 
custom, and does not rest upon any written 
law. The practice probably arose at a time 
when faculties were small, and its members 



112 THE UNIVERSITY FACULTY 

were intimately related one to another, and 
more interested in keeping the faculties strong 
than any other set of men connected with the 
institution. The trustees presumably met but 
seldom, and had no time to inquire into the 
claims and merits of different candidates. 
Moreover, when the range of college studies 
was small, and all members of the faculty had 
passed through the same curriculum in their 
youth, they were fair judges of the qualifica- 
tions of candidates whose range of knowledge 
and intellectual interests was similar to their 
own. 

The problem of selecting new members of 
a faculty is utterly different to-day. In a large 
university faculty of arts and sciences the 
members rarely feel competent to pass on the 
qualifications of candidates for election who 
do not belong to their own department, or to 
some closely allied department. Thus a pro- 
fessor of Latin, Sanskrit, or comparative lit- 
erature, will ordinarily declare that he knows 
nothing about the qualifications of a candi- 
date for a professorship of mathematics, geo- 



FACULTY NOMINATION OF PROFESSORS 113 

logy, or chemistry; and all members of the 
faculty are conscious of this sort of ignorance 
on their own part. The official nomination 
by a faculty under such circumstances is a 
formality or a convention, and not a piece of 
real advice. The president of the university, 
the dean of one of its schools, or a committee 
of the trustees, when charged with the nomi- 
nation of a professor, will naturally consult 
the professors of the department in which the 
vacancy is to be filled, and often the profes- 
sors of allied departments, and will so obtain 
much more direct and valuable advice than 
the vote of a faculty could give. This func- 
tion of nominating professors for election by 
the trustees is therefore not one to be recom- 
mended for the faculties of an expanding and 
hopeful institution. Other methods of selection 
already exist which work better in practice, and 
are theoretically sounder. The method was 
natural in a private-venture medical school, 
because the professors were there really part- 
ners in a business the proceeds of which they 
divided, and as such had a right to decide on 



114 THE UNIVERSITY FACULTY 

the admission of new members to the firm; 
but since all the best medical schools have 
been taken on by universities, this method o£ 
selecting professors has been modified or aban- 
doned in the new medical faculties. The func- 
tion is still sometimes exercised by a committee 
of all the full professors in a medical faculty, 
but is of doubtful expediency even when thus 
limited. 

What is called discipline in an American 
university is ordinarily committed entirely to 
its several faculties. This discipline may vary 
in the different faculties of the same institu- 
tion. In general, it is a government which 
uses no force except the force of public opin- 
ion; and this opinion is compounded of the 
opinion of the older scholars who are the 
teachers, and of the younger students who 
are the junior members of the university for 
the time being, with an admixture of the 
opinion of the graduates of the institution, 
which, though somewhat remote and infre- 
quently appealed to, is yet felt by faculty 
and students alike as a real unofficial force of 



COLLEGE DISCIPLINE 115 

a wholly disinterested character. The only 
penalties which a faculty uses^ after warnings, 
reproofs, and exhortations, are temporary ban- 
ishments, and in the last resort, final sepa- 
ration from the institution after all other 
measures have failed. These penalties are, how- 
ever, highly effective, because of the univer- 
sal recognition of the fact that membership 
in a college or university is a high privilege. 
L From the long and varied experience of Amer- 
ican colleges in tr3dng to maintain a just and 
effective discipline, certain general rules or 
principles of administration have been evolved, 
the most important of which are as follows : 
No faculty, or official, should ever try to make 
a student, who is merely suspected of hav- 
ing taken part in an offence, incriminate 
himself. Students should never be required 
to testify against other students. When the 
guilty cannot be detected, there should be 
no wholesale punishment which involves the 
innocent. A student's statement about his 
own conduct should be accepted, unless it be 
inconsistent with known facts. No publicity 



116 THE UNIVERSITY FACULTY 

should be given to students' offences or de- 
fects, and the record of actual censures and 
punishments should be made as little con- 
demnatory as truth permits. No information 
about disorders should ever be sought from 
any particular set of students, such as high 
scholars, recipients of money aids, church 
members, members of religious societies, stu- 
dents employed by the college, or students 
who in some natural and right way have be- 
come intimate with college officers. All col- 
lege officials should bear constantly in mind 
the plain fact that most college offenders, even 
those who commit ordinary crimes, such as 
cheating and stealing, if considerately and 
mercifully dealt with, and if not ruined in 
body, recover themselves completely, and turn 
out to be honest men and good citizens. Since 
the influence of a college faculty is primarily 
a moral influence, it is indispensable that ail 
its methods and rules in regard to violations 
of good order and right conduct should be 
straightforward, reasonable, and fair. 

The functions of a State university faculty 



OUTSIDE FACULTY LABORS 117 

differ somewhat from those of the faculty in 
an endowed institution which is not depend- 
ent on appropriations to be made by a legis- 
lature, because the State university faculty 
has a stronger sense of direct responsibility 
to its State and a keener desire to be of direct 
and visible service to the learned and scientific 
professions, popular education, the character- 
istic industries, and the pubKc administration 
within its State. It will therefore take active 
part, through many of its members, in visit- 
ing secondary schools, holding short courses 
of elementary instruction at the university or 
at a distance from it, lecturing at teachers' 
institutes, women's clubs, grange meetings, 
and trade-associations, distributing through 
numerous short-term students superior seeds 
proved at the university, and working on 
State commissions which need the help of 
experts. Such useful functions as these the 
faculties of endowed universities in the East 
have been slow to assume. They have been 
inclined to reserve themselves for teaching 
and research at the seat of the university, 



118 THE UNIVERSITY FACULTY 

and to leave to others all sorts of '' university 
extension " v^ork. They are, however, improv- 
ing in this respect, because they now realize 
that in a democratic society all institutions of 
higher education, whether endowed or sup- 
ported from public revenues, are ultimately 
dependent on the public's appreciation of their 
services, direct and indirect, and on the result- 
ing good-will of the whole community. Hence 
the growth at endowed institutions of summer 
schools in theology, medicine, and arts and 
sciences, of term-time classes for teachers in 
service, and of courses of popular lectures in 
divinity and medicine at times convenient for 
adults who are earning their livelihood ; and 
hence also the increasing participation of uni- 
versity professors in various forms of public 
work. 

Every faculty should keep careful records 
of the academic career and attainments of 
every student under its charge, and should 
found on these records its recommendations 
for the conferring of degrees, and of all other 
academic distinctions j and it should provide 



FKEQUENT STATED MEETINGS 119 

for the preservation of these records, and their 
secure transmission from century to century. 
Very few American institutions have done 
their full duty in this respect; but the cus- 
toms of the colleges and universities as to 
records and the proper use of them are im- 
proving. 

Such being the functions of a faculty, how 
can they be best discharged ? In the first 
place, by frequent stated meetings for exam- 
ining the condition of its work, for hearing 
reports from its of&cers and committees, and 
for the consideration and discussion of pro- 
posals to improve its methods. 

The rapidity and completeness with which 
methods of instruction and fields of instruc- 
tion change from generation to generation, 
and even from decade to decade, is one of the 
most astonishing facts in the history of edu- 
cation. Thus there is not a single subject 
within the whole range of instruction at Har- 
vard University, from the beginning of the 
undergraduate course to the end of the pro- 



120 THE UNIVERSITY FACULTY 

fessional courses, which is now taught in the 
same way in which it was taught forty years 
ago, or which offers the same field of instruc- 
tion which it offered to the student of the last 
generation. All the methods and apparatus of 
teaching, and the spirit or temper of teacher 
and taught alike, have changed. Some of these 
profound changes begin in the faculties ; but 
others begin outside the university in the 
working world, and must be discerned, appre- 
ciated, and adopted by the faculties ; some 
are university inventions ; but many are the 
consequences of social, industrial, and political 
changes in the outside world. Every faculty, 
therefore, has to keep up with the rapid march 
of educational events, and for this purpose 
it must have frequent stated meetings, and 
patient discussion of new proposals. 

This necessity for the constant revision of 
educational plans, methods, and material pene- 
trates, or should penetrate, to the work of 
every individual teacher in the university. A 
professor who reads year after year the same 
lectures is sure to become an incubus on his 



VITALITY IN A FACULTY 121 

department and his university. The young 
instructor who does not apply the experience 
of one year's teaching to vivify and improve 
the next year's is a bad candidate for promo- 
tion. So, in the agglomeration of university 
teachers called a faculty, if they meet but 
seldom, leaving to deans, secretaries, and com- 
mittees all the routine work without demand- 
ing of them incessant improvements, receive 
from the members few new proposals, and do 
their best to avoid discussion of those few, 
it is certain that the institution in their charge 
will not grow or thrive, and will soon cease 
to play a leading part in the educational pro- 
gress of the community or the nation. By the 
vitality, inventiveness, and enterprise of its 
faculty, it is safe to judge any institution of 
learning. Nothing can take the place of vital- 
ity in a faculty, no one-man power in a presi- 
dent or dean, no vigor and ambition in a board 
of trustees, and no affection or zeal in the 
graduates of the institution. 

Faculty meetings serve several other pur- 
poses besides that of the promotion of educa- 



122 THE UNIVERSITY FACULTY 

tional improvements. In the first place, they 
greatly promote mutual acquaintance and good 
understanding among the teachers of a col- 
lege or university. Good fellowship and a real 
intellectual intimacy among the teachers of 
a university are in themselves great objects. 
They create a good atmosphere for the intel- 
lectual life of the whole body of teachers and 
students. In faculty meetings the different 
qualities of the members who take part in the 
discussions are plainly revealed. The whole 
body learns that certain members are public- 
spirited, generous of time and labor, and co- 
operative, while other members exhibit the 
opposite qualities. Some members are seen to 
be clear, keen, and fair in debate, while others 
are obscure, dull, or unfair; some members 
are modest and retiring, and yet ready for 
service, while others are more forth-putting in 
talk, but not so serviceable ; some are quick, 
ready, and fertile, while others are habitually 
slow to speak, and even tardy in debate, and 
yet sound and influential ; some say little, but 
their opinions are weighty when expressed; 



COMPOSITION OF COMMITTEES 123 

others talk much and often, and neverthe- 
less are influential because inventive and 
suggestive. That the members of a faculty 
understand each others' dispositions and vari- 
ous capacities is often a great advantage in 
university crises or emergencies; that the 
president and the deans. should have the op- 
portunities which faculty meetings supply to 
become acquainted with the powers and char- 
acters of the different members of the univer- 
sity staff is of primary importance. In every 
large faculty the personal composition of its 
committees is of great importance; and no 
president, or nominating committee, can make 
up these committees judiciously, unless he has 
the opportunity which faculty meetings afford 
to become thoroughly acquainted with the 
mental and moral make-up of its different 
members. In faculty meetings, and in service 
on faculty committees, the men who have ad- 
ministrative capacity show their quality, and 
from that class deans and secretaries are best 
selected. It is hardly necessary to say that the 
president of a university should preside at the 



124 THE UNIVERSITY FACULTY 

meetings of all its faculties, and should give 
each faculty the advantage of the experience 
of all the others. A wise president will dread 
nothing so much as an inert and uninterested 
faculty. 

There is no way to prevent a faculty of arts 
and sciences, or of medicine, or of applied 
science, from becoming a large body in a 
prosperous and serviceable university. Mere 
size brings with it difficulties for a body 
which is both deliberative and administrative. 
Moreover, large faculties imply numerous 
appointments of young men every year. It 
is, therefore, an interesting question how a 
large faculty may be subdivided into effective 
groups, each of which can prepare a certain 
part of the faculty's business for the faculty 
and the president. Within the last twenty 
years experience has shown the advantageous 
way of creating these effective subdivisions ; 
and the increasing authority of these subdivi- 
sions, each within its legitimate sphere of 
action, is one of the great gains made of late 
years in American university organization. 



FUNCTIONS OF DEPARTMENTS 125 

Every large faculty should be divided into de- 
partments by subject, each department consist- 
ing of the teachers of that subject who are 
members of the faculty. Each department thus 
organized is, as has already been said, a body 
with homogeneous interests and kindred ambi- 
tions and hopes. They all know much about 
each other's work, and are good judges of the 
young men who, year after year, aspire to teach 
their subject in the university. As a group, 
they know how the interests of their subject 
may most effectively be promoted at the mo- 
ment, and are therefore well qualified to urge 
the needs of their department on the faculty, 
the president, and the community. The older 
members of the department also know the 
young men who in former years exhibited in- 
terest in the work of the department while 
students, and what has become of them in 
after-life. They can bring the needs of the 
department before such of their former stu- 
dents as have succeeded in business, or in the 
professions, and can interest them better than 
anybody else in promoting the interests of 



126 THE UNIVERSITY FACULTY 

the department. They can discuss within the 
department the methods of instruction in 
use ; the completeness or incompleteness of the 
series of courses offered by the department ; 
the expediency of changing the series, whether 
by subtraction or addition ; and the exchange 
of courses from time to time among members 
of the department. In the intimacy of depart- 
mental debates, the older men can inform the 
younger, and the younger the older. 

Each department needs a chairman, and 
most large departments need also a secretary. 
The policy to be followed in selecting this 
chairman is a matter of grave consequence. 
In small colleges which had but one professor 
for each subject, it was natural that the single 
professor should always be treated as the head 
of his department; but in large colleges or 
universities which employ many teachers in a 
single department, the principle of seniority 
is a dangerous one for determining the selec- 
tion of the chairmen of departments. The se- 
lection is best made from time to time either 
by the president, or by a faculty committee of 



CHAIRMEN OF DEPARTMENTS 127 

■which the president is chairman. This com- 
mittee may wisely treat department chairman- 
ships as offices to be held only for four, five, 
or six years, unless, indeed, a department be 
too small to provide a series of good chair- 
men. On this principle the chairmen will not 
often be senior professors, and indeed will 
generally be junior professors, or assistant 
professors. In this way a considerable num- 
ber of persons will, within twenty years, ex- 
ercise the function of chairman of a depart- 
ment, and will be enlarged and improved by 
that exercise. Moreover, dangers from the 
domination of masterful personages will be 
reduced to a minimum under this system ; 
while the advantages of a real leadership need 
not be lost. 

To the departments will naturally fall the 
nomination of young men for annual appoint- 
ments, and in this way they will exercise 
considerable power over the future of the uni- 
versity. The faculty and the president will 
always have to be on their guard against the 
urgencies of the departments, balancing one 



128 THE UNIVERSITY FACULTY 

claim against another, and watching to see that 
the development of the departments is propor- 
tionate to the importance of their respective 
subjects. 

In the presentation of department business 
to the faculty, chairmen of departments often 
feel obliged to urge on the faculty the action 
which the department has taken by a ma- 
jority vote, without revealing the existence of 
a strong minority opinion within the depart- 
ment. This natural, and, perhaps, inevitable 
practice enhances the importance of thor- 
oughly discussing within the faculty every 
proposal which is brought before it. In such 
a discussion the minority view within a de- 
partment can almost always be brought out, 
to the enlightenment of the faculty. A well- 
organized and active department will generally 
procure, outside of the official programmes of 
the faculty, various conferences, and public or 
private lectures by experts brought from with- 
out the university, which stimulate teachers 
and students alike, and add to the effective- 
ness of the department as a whole. 



DEPARTMENT ACTIVITIES 129 

A department is also very likely to interest 
itself in some medium of stated publication 
for papers written by members of the depart- 
ment, or invited from scholars at other uni- 
versities. These publications, if well managed, 
not only strengthen the department which 
produces them, but add to the prestige of the 
university as a whole. Again, it often hap- 
pens that the group of teachers and students 
called a department takes a vigorous interest 
in adding to the resources of the university 
library on the departmental subject, and this 
is one of the most legitimate of all fields for 
departmental interest and labor. The books 
having been procured, the department inter- 
ests itself in securing a separate reading-room 
for its own use. Thence arises a demand for 
a departmental building where its lecture- 
rooms, collections, and reading-room can all be 
brought together. The departmental organi- 
zation is therefore likely to affect in the 
future, not only the internal, but also the 
external structure of the American univer- 
sities. Since departments are inevitably com- 



130 THE UNIVERSITY FACULTY 

mittees of a faculty, and will always need 
faculty control, their increasing power and 
usefulness imply the increasing power and use- 
fulness of the faculty out of which they are 
created. 



IV 

THE ELECTIVE SYSTEM 

Great changes have come over the American 
college and university during the last forty 
years. The greatest change is the general in- 
troduction in larger or smaller measure of the 
elective system; and the next in importance 
is the change in methods of instruction. The 
present chapter deals with the nature, objects, 
and results of the elective system, and the 
following chapter with methods of instruc- 
tion. 

In the first place, the elective system is a 
system, — that is, a carefully arranged scheme 
of numerous courses of instruction which are 
open to the choice of students under rules 
partly artificial, but chiefly natural and inev- 
itable. The elective system has been described 
by its opponents as a wide-open, miscellane- 
ous bazaar, at which a bewildering variety of 
goods is offered to the purchaser, who is left 



132 THE ELECTIVE SYSTEM 

without guidance, and acts without any con- 
stant or sensible motive. Nothing could be 
farther from the facts than this description. 
An elective system presupposes a well-ordered 
series of consecutive courses in each large 
subject of instruction, such as Latin, Ger- 
man, history, or physics. The division of the 
courses of instruction into groups by subject 
is natural and easily intelligible. Within these 
groups the series of subjects is natural and 
plain, except for the unexplained gaps which 
often occur in the series, — gaps due to the 
inadequacy of the institution's resources. 

In a strong university the subjects of in- 
struction taken together ought to cover all 
fields of human knowledge in which it is pos- 
sible to give systematic instruction; and in 
each subject the schedule of courses should be 
in the highest degree orderly and consecutive, 
rising from the elementary, comprehensive 
course, through courses of greater and greater 
difficulty, becoming more and more intensive, 
until the summit is reached in the conferences 
or seminaries which take advanced students 



THE LIMITATIONS OF CHOICE 133 

to the limits of knowledge in that subject. It 
is obvious that a university which undertakes 
thus to deal with all subjects of knowledge 
must offer a very large total of different 
courses, and that in a certain sense, therefore, 
the choice of the individual student has a 
large range; but it is equally obvious that 
in the list or schedule of courses in a given 
division or department of knowledge the 
choice of the individual student has strenuous 
limitations. Thus, the beginner - must take 
the elementary course first, and he must then 
advance through the long schedule of the de- 
partment by well-marked steps. He cannot 
choose an advanced course in any subject 
until he has laid the necessary foundation. 
No student is admitted to any course unless 
he has fulfilled all the requirements for that 
course, and the department announcements 
contain numerous prescriptions concerning 
the sequence of courses. He cannot take 
two courses which occur in the time-tables 
at the same hour; and the time-tables may 
be systematically used to prevent unwise 



134 THE ELECTIVE SYSTEM 

combinations of courses. In well-conducted 
institutions he cannot take an advanced 
course without the consent of the instructor, 
who must be satisfied that the student is 
well prepared to do the work which the in- 
structor habitually demands. The elective sys- 
tem, then, is extensive and complex, but it 
is also orderly, well mapped, and thoroughly 
regulated. 

The primary object of the elective system 
is to enable the serious student to select his 
studies in accordance with his tastes and ca- 
pacities. He is enabled to select those studies 
which interest him, or those teachers who 
interest him, with the result that he works 
much harder than he would on subjects which 
do not interest him, makes more rapid pro- 
gress, and arrives sooner at the satisfactory 
stage of real intellectual achievement. Any 
human being, whether child or adult, whether 
hand-worker or brain-worker, will always work 
harder and accomplish more in a task which 
interests him. The first effect, therefore, of 
the elective system on the individual student 



SUCCESS THROUGH INTEREST 135 

who has intellectual ambition is always to 
get more work from him. It also makes him 
sooner a productive person, that is, a contrib- 
utor to the sum of knowledge. This is the 
primary object of the elective system, — to 
make the serious student work hard, accom- 
plish something worth while, and so win power 
and happiness. The complete development of 
the elective system takes place in the later 
years of instruction in arts and sciences, that 
is, in the school commonly called the Gradu- 
ate School, because at the time of its institu- 
tion it was the only school in the American 
university for admission to which a previous 
degree was required. Here the elective sys- 
tem has full scope, although the individual 
student in the Graduate School ordinarily 
chooses nothing but his line of work. On 
that line the steps of his progress are laid out 
for him ; and his will cooperates in the limita- 
tions, for the intense specialization he desires 
prescribes the limitations. 

But how is it with the college student who 
is not serious ? There are such in most Amer- 



136 THE ELECTIVE SYSTEM 

ican colleges, although they form a much 
smaller proportion of the whole body than 
uneducated people generally believe. What 
use will he make of the broad range of op- 
tional subjects? What is the object of an elec- 
tive system for him ? He will tend to avoid 
advanced study, and make his selection there- 
fore among the more elementary courses, in 
the hope that they will prove easier than the 
advanced courses, or more level to his intelli- 
gence. Among the elementary courses he will 
undoubtedly choose those which present most 
interest to his unawakened mind, and he will 
also diligently inquire for the inexperienced, 
less strict, or more soft-hearted instructors, in 
the hope that his shortcomings may by such 
men be gently dealt with. He will also study 
the time-tables, and avoid courses which are 
scheduled for too early morning hours or too 
late afternoon hours. In general he will select 
the courses which seem to him safest with a 
view to timely graduation, and to this end he 
will seek the advice of older students of his 
sort. 



ITS VALUE FOR THE UNAMBITIOUS 137 

What will be the result of this mode of 
selecting his studies by a student without 
any intellectual ambition ? His total course, or 
total selection of courses, will probably resem- 
ble the old prescribed course in the American 
college, that is, it will remain in the elements 
of all subjects ; it will continue in college some 
of the subjects studied at school, because those 
are the subjects in which the youth has some 
acquired capital ; and it will contain a greater 
variety of subjects than any ambitious stu- 
dent will include in his programme. It will 
be what is ordinarily called an " all-round " 
course. It will, however, be a course which 
will procure from the chooser more work than 
such a person would ever have done under a 
prescribed system ; because in some degree it 
is selected on the ground of the mental inter- 
ests of the individual, or on the ground of the 
attractive and influential personality of some 
teacher or teachers. 

It would be difficult to overestimate the 
value of an elective system for the lowest quar- 
ter of a college class. It not only gets much 



138 THE ELECTIVE SYSTEM 

more work out of that quarter, but also offers 
them their only chance of experiencing an 
intellectual awakening while in college. By 
following, though almost unconsciously, their 
natural bent, such young men have the best 
chance of developing some power of applica- 
tion, and some desire for intellectual achieve- 
ment. The object of the elective system for 
a student disposed to follow the line of least 
resistance is to give him a chance to get 
roused from his childish state of mind and 
will, and to feel stirring within him the mo- 
tives of a considerate and fore-looking adult. 
There is another class of students to whom 
an elective method is a great blessing, namely, 
the late-developing young men, and the young 
men whose minds are not quickened by any 
of the subjects usually taught in secondary 
schools. The old prescribed college curricu- 
lum, which was in the main a continuation 
of school subjects, rarely offered these men 
any new advantages or opportunities ; but the 
wide-ranging elective system may easily give 
them entrance to fields in which they have 



MIXING STUDENTS OF DIFFERENT AGES 139 

some chance to excel. Here, again, an elective 
system brings opportunity, and with it inspi- 
ration and hope. 

It is another object of a broad elective sys- 
tem to mix the students of the different col- 
lege classes together, and to mix graduates 
with undergraduates in the same course. Be- 
cause of the great number of elective courses 
offered at any good college, it is quite impos- 
sible for any single student to pursue more 
than an insignificant fraction of them dur- 
ing his total residence at the college. It may 
easily be the interest of a student belonging 
to a higher college class to pursue with mem- 
bers of a lower class an elective course which 
he has not previously taken. Moreover, a 
graduate of the same college, or of some other 
college, may desire to take up, after he has 
obtained his first degree, some studies which 
he did not have time to enter upon during his 
college course, or had not felt the need of pur- 
suing. In consequence, almost every course of 
instruction largely resorted to in colleges where 
the elective system is broad contains gradu- 



140 THE ELECTIVE SYSTEM 

ates, members of all the college classes, and 
special students all mixed together. When 
a scientific school makes part of the insti- 
tution, some of the scientific courses will also 
be resorted to simultaneously by members 
of all the different classes. This mixing 
of students of different ages, and different 
academic status, is an unqualified advantage ; 
provided that all are united in a common pur- 
pose to master the course they are attending 
together. The younger student from a lower 
class is stimulated by the older men with 
whom he associates, and if all the attendants 
are qualified to pursue the study to advan- 
tage, the older men suffer no harm. 

When the Graduate School of Arts and 
Sciences was first established in Harvard Uni- 
versity, in the spring of 1872, the adoption of 
rules determining the period of residence and 
the examinations for the higher degrees was 
accompanied by a vote opening all the elective 
courses of instruction in Harvard College to 
Bachelors of Arts of Harvard College, and of 
all other colleges. The reason for this vote 



GROUPING STUDENTS BY SUBJECT 141 

was that no undergraduate during his four 
years' course could take more than a fifth part 
of the instruction the College then offered; 
so that the student who had just received his 
Bachelor's degree might well find at least a 
year's work among those college electives 
which he could not pursue while an under- 
graduate. What was true of Harvard Bache- 
lors of Arts was still more likely to be true of 
the recent graduates of other colleges. Thirty 
years later, the number of courses of instruc- 
tion offered in Harvard College and the Grad- 
uate School had greatly increased; so that 
the correctness of the principle laid down 
by anticipation in 1872 has been abundantly 
demonstrated. Graduate and undergraduate 
students are to be found together in scores 
of the courses of instruction now offered by 
Harvard University, although there are also 
many advanced courses in which none but 
graduates appear. This grouping of older and 
younger students by subject is one distinct 
object of the elective system, although a sub- 
ordinate one. 



142 THE ELECTIVE SYSTEM 

The grouping of students of various ages 
and various academic standing by their sub- 
jects of study has certain valuable social ef- 
fects. It leads to intercourse among students 
based on like tastes and intellectual interests, 
particularly in elective courses which are 
chosen by a moderate or a small number of 
students. There is no better starting-point 
for a college friendship than sympathy in an 
intellectual pursuit, or than a common devo- 
tion to an interesting subject or an interesting 
teacher. 

An excellent effect of the election of his own 
studies by each individual student is the added 
sense of responsibility which this freedom 
gives. A prescribed course alike for all leaves 
no freedom to the student in his studies, and 
imposes on him no responsibility. Here, as 
everywhere else, it is only under a regime of 
liberty that the individual can acquire the ca- 
pacity for self- direction and self-control, and 
the sense of responsibility for his own conduct. 
A college in which a good elective system pre- 
vails furnishes instruction in great variety, 



STUDENTS NOT FREE TO DO NOTHING 143 

offers guidance and aid in the daily work of 
the student, and holds rigid examinations; but 
it throws the responsibility of selecting his 
fields of work on the student himself. Experi- 
ence has shown that young Americans of the 
college age possess as a rule the intelligence 
and character to win mental and moral profit 
from this responsibility. To provide the occa- 
sion aud the means for this great profit is one 
important object of an elective system. 

It is perhaps unnecessary in these days to 
meet the unenlightened criticism which used 
to be made on the elective system, namely, that 
choice of studies for college youths must mean 
the gratification of a desire not to study at 
all. Experience has demonstrated that there 
is no foundation for this apprehension. An 
elective system does not mean liberty to do 
nothing. It allows every student to choose his 
subjects of study; but the amount of his work 
remains prescribed, and its quality is tested 
by means of periodical examinations, essays, 
laboratory work, and frequent conferences 
between teacher and student. Under a well- 



144 THE ELECTIVE SYSTEM 

administered elective system not only is a 
minimum of attainment prescribed, but there 
are numerous competitive inducements to 
strenuous study. As a method in education it 
has emphatically a moral as well as an intel- 
lectual end. 

It is important to discriminate between the 
fundamental principle of freedom of choice 
and the administrative methods which exact 
from each student a reasonable amount of 
work, and estimate the quality of that work. 
The main principle being settled once for all, 
the administrative methods will be capable 
of indefinite improvement. Under election, 
as under prescription, it is an altogether 
separate question whether or not a college 
chooses to retain within its walls young men 
who do no work, or who will work only in 
their plays. Under an elective system, quite as 
well as under a prescribed system, a college 
may say that it does not care to keep young 
men who do not reach a certain minimum of 
attainment. That is a question of discipline, 
altogether apart from the question whether 



ENFORCING A MINIMUM ATTAINMENT 145 

studies should be elective or prescribed. A 
college with a wide range of elective studies 
may easily be the strictest of colleges with 
regard to the minimum attainment of its stu- 
dents. Six long-service teachers in Harvard 
College between 1850 and 1900 had close ob- 
servation of the minimum attainment of stu- 
dents in Harvard College between the years 
1849 and 1869 under a system almost com- 
pletely prescribed ; and since 1880 a prolonged 
period of observation of the minimum attain- 
ment of Harvard undergraduates under a sys- 
tem almost completely elective. Comparing the 
two minima, they all agreed that the latter 
minimum was unquestionably much higher 
than the former. This result, however, was 
obtained by applying during the later period 
to indifferent, lazy, and incompetent students 
a stricter supervision than was exercised over 
students from forty to sixty years ago. It is 
one of the great advantages of the elective 
system that the intelligent, self-directing, re- 
sponsible student can have all the advantages of 
freedom, while the irresponsible, thoughtless, 



146 THE ELECTIVE SYSTEM 

or lazy student can be made to do some work, 
without driving him into studies for which 
he has no capacity and in which he feels no 
interest. The free choice of studies can pre- 
vail under a variety of disciplinary policies ; it 
is compatible with a severe exclusion of idlers 
and dullards. 

It is time to consider briefly some of the 
limits and bounds of the elective system. It is 
only in the Department of Arts and Sciences 
that an elective system has wide application. 
As soon as a young man has chosen his pro- 
fession, his series of studies is prescribed to 
him in large measure. Every student in a pro- 
fessional school has, of course, chosen his pro- 
fession and marked out his life-work; but it 
is only a small proportion of college students 
who know from the start what calling they are 
to follow. Many of the professions are now 
divided into specialties, each of which involves 
a peculiar training. Accordingly, in good pro- 
fessional schools there is a moderate appli- 
cation of the elective principle, designed to 



LIMITS OF THE SYSTEM 147 

enable young men to prepare for specialties in 
their profession. Thus, in engineering a young 
man may be sure that he is destined to be a 
mechanical, a civil, or an electrical engineer; 
and his professional studies may wisely be 
determined in some measure by the foreknow- 
ledge of this specialty. In a medical school, 
in the latter part of the course, the students 
ought to have a moderate range of elective 
studies, in order that they may begin while 
in the school the preparation for medical spe- 
cialties. 

In general, a college student who knows 
what his profession is to be will ordinarily 
find that some of his college studies are prac- 
tically prescribed for him, because he feels the 
force of the advice to take certain preliminary 
studies. Thus, the young man destined to en- 
gineering will inevitably choose a large amount 
of mathematics and physics during his college 
course; and a young man who is destined 
for medicine will, if he follow good advice, 
study chemistry, physics, biology, French, and 
German on the way to his A. B. or S. B. The 



148 THE ELECTIVE SYSTEM 

student who has no clue to the profession he 
is to follow will be guided in his selection of 
college studies, if he is wise, by his individual 
tastes, inclinations, and capacities. If he fol- 
lows this guidance, it will probably turn out, 
when he chooses his profession, that he has 
already taken in college subjects related to his 
future professional work ; for the wise choice 
of the profession will be based upon the same 
consideration of his tastes and powers which 
determined his choice of college studies. In 
both kinds of choice, the wise chooser will rely 
on the same sort of guidance. 

In a well-managed college competent advice 
is always offered to the newcomer in planning 
his own schedule of studies; but the main 
function of the adviser will be to interpret 
the printed announcements, time-tables, and 
regulations, and to show him how to lay out 
his own course with due regard to the fences 
of the elective system. Thus, for young men 
who have no purpose to be students, the mini- 
mum requirements for the degree afford guid- 
ance which they can disregard only at consid- 



GUIDANCE TO SOUND CHOICES 149 

erable peril. For ambitious young men, the 
rules about degrees with distinction give clear 
and acceptable guidance. The rules for ob- 
taining honors at graduation also afford guid- 
ance for students who desire to make a judi- 
cious specialization in their studies. 

An example of this sort of guidance may 
be found in the rules about Honors in Litera- 
ture in Harvard College. The requirements 
are as follows : A good reading knowledge of 
at least two languages, one ancient, one mod- 
ern; an amount of reading in at least two 
literatures, one ancient, one modern, which 
shall be satisfactory to the Committee on 
Honors in Literature; an acquaintance with 
the general history of two literatures, one 
ancient, one modern, to be tested by an ex- 
amination; a thorough study of two special 
subjects from two different literatures, one 
ancient, one modern. Such rules as these 
will give good guidance to any real student 
throughout his entire college course, not only 
in the selection of individual courses, but in 
the grouping of those he selects. 



150 THE ELECTIVE SYSTEM 

The largest effect of the elective system is 
that it makes scholarship possible, not only 
among undergraduates, but among graduate 
students and college teachers. While college 
curricula were prescribed, and therefore dealt 
almost entirely with the elements of the sub- 
jects taught, there was little in the work of a 
college teacher which stimulated him to broad 
and deep intellectual attainments. His col- 
lege work became an absolute routine. Out- 
side of the college he perhaps gave popular 
lectures, or compiled school and college text- 
books, or preached, if a minister, as he often 
was. He but seldom became an advanced stu- 
dent or investigator; and when in rare cases 
he did become a real scholar, it was by force 
of innate genius impelling him to advanced 
work under most unfavorable conditions. 

Since the elective system became the gen- 
eral practice of the American colleges and 
universities, so far as their resources have 
permitted, the whole aspect of the profession 
of teaching in the higher institutions of learn- 
ing has changed. Even the young teachers 



SCHOLAKSHIP MADE POSSIBLE 151 

have received each a competent training in 
some specialty, while the assistant professors 
and professors are always chosen from men 
who have demonstrated their capacity for per- 
sistent, productive, scholarly work. A success- 
ful professor is an enthusiastic student, an 
inspiring teacher, and an indefatigable inves- 
tigator. In all departments of scholarly work, 
such as modern languages, classics, oriental 
languages and literatures, history, economics, 
botany, and zoology, there now exist societies 
or associations which bring together statedly 
scholars in these specialties from all the uni- 
versities and scientific establishments of the 
country. Fifty years ago, these societies for 
specialists were unknown. They are now nu- 
merous, and their number and strength mark 
the arrival of the American scholar, not as 
an accidental product outside of the teaching 
profession, but as a well-equipped professional 
man, systematically produced in and for the 
higher institutions of education. 

It is difficult for the present generation to 
imagine the condition of the American col- 



152 THE ELECTIVE SYSTEM 

leges when there was no instruction given in 
any of them beyond the elementary courses in 
the few arts and sciences which led to the A. B. 
With few and narrow exceptions, no instruc- 
tion in arts and sciences, that could possibly 
be called advanced, was given in the Ameri- 
can colleges before the Civil War. Down to 
1872 there was no systematic provision made 
at Harvard University for instruction in arts 
and sciences beyond the Senior year of the 
College. If any young man wanted to pursue 
the study of literature, history, philosophy^ 
or science beyond the limit set by the require- 
ments for the degree of Bachelor of Arts, he 
had to go to Europe. No other gain from 
the elective system can be compared with 
this development of scholarship in the United 
States. 

In any college or university which under- 
takes to present a series of graded courses in 
all the common subjects of knowledge, elec- 
tion of studies in some large measure by the 
individual student, or selection for him, is 
absolutely inevitable; for no single student 



FREEDOM WITH RESPONSIBILITY 153 

can take in three or four years more than a 
small fraction of the instruction in the liberal 
arts offered at such an institution. But if 
election by the individual with the natural aids 
works well in practice, it is of course to be 
preferred to any method of selection for the 
individual by an authority outside himself, 
since freemen are best trained by practice 
in freedom with responsibility. Now, the ex- 
perience of forty years in a great variety of 
American institutions has proved that elec- 
tion by the individual works well, wherever 
the administrative methods which should ac- 
company such an elective system have been 
well devised and well executed. Hence, the 
system is not only inevitable, but in the high- 
est degree expedient and profitable. 

Inasmuch as Harvard University has a wider 
elective system than any other American in- 
stitution, and has devised successful adminis- 
trative methods in connection with the system, 
it is fair to use the experience there obtained 
as evidence of the superiority of election by 
the student over selection for the student by 



154 THE ELECTIVE SYSTEM 

faculty, administrative board, dean, or other 
authority. The results obtained at Harvard 
University may be conveniently discussed 
under six heads. 

(1) The elective system permits the student 
to concentrate his work upon the subjects in 
which his capacity is greatest, and so to make 
rewarding progress in his chosen lines of 
study. This freedom for the student to special- 
ize has the great incidental advantage of de- 
veloping the advanced instruction in college, 
and such a development, limited only by the 
pecuniary resources of the institution, will 
result from every well-administered elective 
system, and cannot be obtained so promptly 
and completely under any other system. This 
specialization might conceivably be extreme, 
or too common, under free election. Has it 
proved so ? Not at Harvard College. The or- 
dinary college student does not wish to special- 
ize to an extreme. The number of students in 
advanced courses at Harvard is small in all 
departments. The great body of the under- 
graduates frequent the elementary courses in 



SPECIALIZATION — CONTINUITY 155 

languages, mathematics, history, philosophy, 
economics, government, and the natural sci- 
ences, wishing to obtain initiatory surveys of 
many fields rather than a detailed knowledge 
of one. Twenty years ago, it was demonstrated 
that not more than 8% of the undergradu- 
ates in Harvard College wished to specialize 
their work to any high degree, and all sub- 
sequent experience tends the same way. It is 
only in the Graduate School of Arts and Sci- 
ences that any large percentage of the stu- 
dents tend to a high degree of specialization ; 
and of course in such a school of mature 
students, specialization is wholly desirable. 

(2) What does the experience at Harvard 
College show with regard to the wisdom of 
the choices made by students as regards con- 
tinuity of study, or persistence in the same or 
kindred studies, from year to year? Critics of 
the elective system have often assumed that 
free choice of studies would generally result 
in a capricious selection of heterogeneous, 
elementary studies for trivial motives. This 
criticism is founded, not on observation of 



156 THE ELECTIVE SYSTEM 

the actual facts, but on a presupposition as to 
what American youth would be likely to do. 
What occurs may now be plainly seen by any 
competent person who will patiently examine 
the records of the students' choices at Har- 
vard College during the last thirty-five years. 
Careful inspection of the records will satisfy 
any candid mind that the elective system does 
not produce the evil imagined ; but, on the 
contrary, results in almost all cases in con- 
sistent plans of individual study throughout 
the college course. Inconsecutive or aimless 
selections are hard to find. More than twenty 
years ago, three experts, all familiar with the 
relations and sequences of the courses of in- 
struction given during the period of 1881 to 
1885, carefully examined the entire series of 
three hundred and fifty choices made by the 
students of that time, being the entire classes 
of 1884 and 1885 in Harvard College. They 
endeavored, independently of each other, to 
pick out those selections which, in their judg- 
ment, lacked coherency or consecutiveness. 
These three agreed upon only six cases of 



CHOICES ARE COHERENT 157 

incoherence — three in the class of '84, and 
three in the class of '85, Two out of the 
three experts — but not the same two in every 
instance — agreed on twenty-one cases within 
the two classes. When three experts cannot 
agree that a given selection of studies lacks co- 
herency, it may well be that knowledge of the 
circumstances and conditions under which the 
individual selection was made would fully ex- 
plain or indeed justify it. The general result 
of this particular examination was that inco- 
herent choices were very few, and that the 
intelligence in selection was nearly as great 
in the lower half of a class as in the upper. 
This verdict would stand unchanged to-day, 
except that the recent gross exaggeration of 
athletic sports has added slightly to the num- 
ber of incoherent or wrong-motived elections 
of studies. 

When thousands of young men thus make 
for themselves judicious and coherent selec- 
tions of Hues of study which run through three 
or four years, it is plain that there must 
be some guiding principles, or demarcations, 



158 THE ELECTIVE SYSTEM 

natural or artificial, which avail to make free 
choice judicious in the main, and particularly 
to make it coherent. A just appreciation of 
these guiding principles is absolutely necessary 
to an understanding of the elective system. 
The purely natural guides are obvious and 
authoritative. The most thoughtless youth 
cannot help taking up a new subject at the 
beginning, and not in the middle. If he would 
continue a study which he has already pur- 
sued, he must take it up again at the point 
where he left off. He soon discovers that 
many subjects taught at a university cannot 
be advantageously studied without a previous 
knowledge of some other subject, or subjects. 
He perceives that every advanced course pre- 
supposes acquaintance with some elementary 
course, or courses, in the same department. 
He obeys the natural tendency to pursue a 
congenial subject, once entered on. To be 
sure, in order to render these natural guides 
effective, the Faculty must supply full infor- 
mation about the inevitable sequence of studies 
in each department, and the mutual depend- 



ELEMENTARY COURSES WISELY CHOSEN 159 

ence of related courses. The giving of this 
information in clear and compact form is an 
important part of the administrative regula- 
tion which must accompany any successful 
elective system. 

Students who, while in college, discover what 
their future profession is to be, have another 
natural guide through the intricacies of a wide 
elective system. They can, and do, select those 
college subjects which afford the best foun- 
dation for their future professional studies. It 
has already been pointed out that the rules con- 
cerning honors and degrees with distinction 
give a certain amount of artificial guidance 
towards effective groups of studies. 

(3) It has been supposed that American 
students, when allowed to choose their studies, 
would simply inquire for the easiest courses, 
and take them. Such critics point to the 
courses which are selected by large numbers 
of students in any college with a wide elective 
system, and say these largely attended courses 
are all elementary, therefore they must be 
easy, and they are chosen because they are 



160 THE ELECTIVE SYSTEM 

easy. Neither part of this proposition is founded 
on fact. The elementary courses in a well- 
conducted college ought to be as well taught 
as any others, and ought not to be easy in any 
proper sense. They are chosen by large num- 
bers because they relate to subjects concerning 
which almost all students want to know some- 
thing. They represent in part the courses which 
used to make up the old prescribed curriculum 
in the American colleges, only they are now 
taught in a much more interesting and effective 
manner. They deal, indeed, with the inevitable 
subjects of the less advanced courses under 
any conceivable college system, prescribed 
or elective. In the languages and mathe- 
matics these courses carry on instruction from 
the more elementary stages already reached 
at school; in philosophy, political economy, 
history, and the natural sciences they are the 
necessary courses for beginners, that is, they 
are the only gates to the more advanced 
courses. They treat of topics full of interest 
for the general mass of the students. They 
are selected by college students who wish to 



THE GROUP SYSTEM 161 

carry on the studies they have previously pur- 
sued, or to take up new subjects early in their 
college course in preparation for more ad- 
vanced instruction in the later years. They 
are prudently selected by young men of limited 
capacity who cannot succeed in the more ad- 
vanced courses. They also afford the most pro- 
mising refuges for the few lazy students who 
exist, and will exist, under all college systems. 
(4) In extending the elective system into 
secondary schools, and in introducing it into 
some colleges, a system called the group sys- 
tem has naturally come into use, because it 
is cheaper and easier to administer than a 
thoroughgoing elective system. A consider- 
able show of options for the individual may 
be made by grouping a moderate number of 
studies in several different ways. Thus in a 
high school, nine or ten groups, bearing as 
many different names, can easily be made with 
from twenty to thirty different studies during 
a total school course of four years. Certain 
studies will appear in all the groups, though 
in varying proportions, while other studies 



162 THE ELECTIVE SYSTEM 

will appear only in three or four groups, and 
others in only one or two. This is an econo- 
mical mode of producing an effect of large 
variety. There are, however, serious objections 
to the group system in schools, and still more 
in colleges. When, under a free elective sys- 
tem like that of Harvard, individuals exercise 
freely their spontaneous diversity of choice, it 
will appear in the end that no two individ- 
uals follow the same path through a course 
of four years. Out of hundreds or thousands 
of four-year selections, no two will be found 
to be exactly alike. This diversity corresponds 
to the infinite diversity of mind and charac- 
ter in the choosers. No two minds will spon- 
taneously elect the same studies in the same 
proportions and in the same sequence. Minds 
left in freedom do not fall into nine or ten 
categories, or fit into artificial groups of 
studies arbitrarily compounded by some other 
mind. It is, moreover, quite unnecessary for 
some authority to prescribe these arbitrary 
groups of studies, inasmuch as all desirable 
concentration and continuity of work can be 



OBJECTIONS TO THE GROUP SYSTEM 163 

secured without doing such violence to liberty 
of choice. The group system is also objection- 
able because it commits a schoolboy of four- 
teen, or a college student of eighteen, to a set 
of studies from which he will find it difficult 
to escape later in his course, however much 
he may wish to. There is no need of this early 
committal, either in high school or college. 
To impose upon a boy for several years an ill- 
fitting group of studies from which he can 
hardly extricate himself, is a much more seri- 
ous matter than to allow him to choose amiss 
one or two studies which he can easily replace. 

Again, the group system does not give 
every teacher the precious privilege enjoyed 
under a system of free election, the privilege 
of having no student in his class who has not 
chosen to be there. The group system forces 
a student who desires to study some of the 
subjects which compose a group to take the 
rest, in which he may have no such inter- 
est, and consequently it compels teachers to 
receive reluctant pupils. 

Lastly, the group system, if enforced, com- 



164 THE ELECTIVE SYSTEM 

pels specialization in studies, a kind of com- 
pulsion which is peculiarly unwarrantable. If 
the student be permitted to cut across the 
groups — as often happens in practice — and 
so to make up his own course of study, the 
avowed objects of the group system will be 
defeated, and the school or college might as 
well have a free elective system within the 
limits which its resources impose. In short, 
the group system is only to be recommended 
as a temporary makeshift, while resources are 
narrow, or the raw material of a school or 
college is crude. 

(5) An elective system leads to a great in- 
crease of intercourse between teachers and 
students for intellectual objects, and of spon- 
taneous association for the same objects among 
the students. Conferences, clubs, and societies 
are maintained by young men who find them- 
selves associated in the pursuit of the same, 
or kindred, studies, for the discussion of sub- 
jects connected with these studies. The plea- 
sure and profit derived from these societies 
or clubs are much enhanced by the variety of 



SIGNIFICATION OF THE A. B. 165 

studies and intellectual interests found among 
the members of each society, alongside of the 
common study ; for to the benefits and de- 
lights of intellectual companionship diversity 
of gifts and acquisitions contributes quite as 
much as community of interests. Every small 
elective course, every laboratory course, and 
every seminary or conference at Harvard is 
a focus of common intellectual interests, and 
the occasion of profitable personal relations 
between teachers and students. 

(6) It has been a common criticism of the 
elective system that inasmuch as no two can- 
didates for the degree of Bachelor of Arts 
will have pursued the same studies in the 
same proportions, the degree itself cannot have 
a definite, constant signification aHke for all 
its recipients. Fortunately, it is quite true 
that the degree of Bachelor of Arts in the 
United States no longer means that the young 
men and women who hold it have passed 
through the same course of studies. Neverthe- 
less, the possession of this degree testifies that 
the holder has enjoyed certain valuable privi- 



166 THE ELECTIVE SYSTEM 

leges, and made certain definite attainments. 
All Bachelors of Arts have spent from seven 
to ten years somewhere between the ages of 
thirteen and twenty-three in studies properly 
called liberal. At school they have all learnt 
the elements of Latin, and of some modern 
language besides English, the elements of 
mathematics, a little ancient history, and 
something of English literature ; and in some 
foreign language, and in mathematics, they 
went somewhat beyond the bare elements. At 
Harvard College they have further spent three 
or four years upon a prescribed quantity of 
liberal studies, — all studies being accounted 
liberal which are pursued in the scientific spirit 
for truth's sake, and as means of intellectual 
discipline. The degree of Bachelor of Arts 
therefore remains the common goal of liberal 
study pursued through many years. In many 
institutions the degree of Bachelor of Science 
or Bachelor of Philosophy has a similar signi- 
fication, except that the terms of admission to 
the course of study which leads to this degree 
have generally been lower than those to the 



SIGNIFICANCE OF THE HIGHER DEGREES 167 

course which leads to the degree of Bachelor 
of Arts. 

The objection — if it be an objection — 
that the A. B. has no definite and uniform 
signification applies with much more force to 
the higher degrees of Master of Arts or Sci- 
ence and Doctor of Philosophy or Science. 
No one of these degrees has any definite sig- 
nification in regard to subjects of study or 
specific achievements. 

It will now be obvious that the advantages 
of an elective system in a college cannot be 
reaped, unless choice of studies is wide open 
to the student for at least three years. Any 
college which keeps the curricula for the Fresh- 
man and Sophomore years mainly prescribed, 
and allows free election only in the Junior 
and Senior years, must fail to train advanced 
students except in those subjects which are 
well pursued for long periods in secondary 
schools as well as in colleges; as, for instance, 
in Latin, Greek, mathematics, English, and 
history. A college student in any single de- 
partment like chemistry, zoology, philosophy, 



168 THE ELECTIVE SYSTEM 

or economics, who begins his study of that 
subject not far from its elements, must, never- 
theless, follow a sequence of courses through 
the successive half-years of his college course. 
Thus, for example, he cannot attack the sub- 
ject of quantitative analysis until he has stud- 
ied general chemistry and qualitative analy- 
sis. For developing this sequence properly, he 
needs several half-years. If he has but two 
years in all to give to the subject, a proper 
sequence will not bring him neai* the top of 
his subject. 

In the period from 1870 to 1890— the pe- 
riod of the rapid development of the elective 
system at Harvard College — a long time 
elapsed before the faculty thought it pos- 
sible to admit Freshmen to the elementary 
classes in economics and philosophy. Fresh- 
men were not considered mature enough for 
these studies. Accordingly, the students who 
were attracted towards these subjects found 
themselves compelled to begin them in the 
Sophomore or even in the Junior year. Yet 
the advanced courses could not be attacked 



ITS EFFECTS ON TEACHERS 169 

until the long elementary course had been 
mastered. Experience of the difficulty of pro- 
ducing advanced students of these subjects 
under such conditions within the period of 
college residence, finally led the faculty to 
risk abandoning its theory that a young 
American of nineteen was not prepared to 
grapple with either of these subjects. By trial 
they made the encouraging discovery that 
some Freshmen are more mature than some 
Seniors. In general, an elective system limited 
to two years will fail to develop advanced 
teachers, as well as advanced students, unless, 
indeed, they can expand and continue their 
college teachings in a graduate school. No- 
thing can replace for a teacher the inspiration 
and incitement of training a few genuine ad- 
vanced students, who become his devoted dis- 
ciples and the diffusers of his doctrines. The 
attention of faculties and the public has been 
too often concentrated on the effects of the 
elective system on young students; whereas 
its effects on teachers, and on the develop- 
ment of real scholarship throughout the coun- 



170 THE ELECTIVE SYSTEM 

try, ought to have received more attention ; 
for it is there that its effects have been the 
most beneficent. 

The expediency, and even necessity, of a 
broad elective system in colleges will be seen 
clearly by all those who consider the great 
variety of professional studies for which a 
modern college prepares its graduates. In 
a properly constituted university, all the pro- 
fessional schools will prescribe for admission 
a preliminary degree, such, for instance, as 
the degree of Bachelor of Arts or Bachelor 
of Science. Now these university professional 
schools divide among them the whole field of 
knowledge, each taking so large a region that 
further subdivision becomes necessary in order 
to meet the wants of the young men who pur- 
pose to practice professional specialties. It is 
perfectly understood that under each profes- 
sional course of study lie certain college studies 
which are peculiarly appropriate to that pro- 
fessional course, — as, for instance, mathe- 
matics and physics in preparation for a pro- 
fessional course in engineering ; chemistry, 



AN ELECTIVE SYSTEM IS COSTLY 171 

physics, and biology as preliminary to the 
study of medicine ; and Latin, Greek, Hebrew, 
and philosophy as preliminary to the appro- 
priate studies of a divinity school. When, 
therefore, the American universities come to 
be properly organized, with their professional 
departments on top of their colleges and sci- 
entific schools, and are therefore closed to 
young men who have had no college or scien- 
tific school training, the expediency and ne- 
cessity of free election of studies in college 
will be amply demonstrated. 

Looking back on the development of the 
elective system in the American colleges and 
universities during the past thirty years, one 
sees that the rate of the development and the 
width of the resulting system in each case has 
been in the main a question of the pecuniary 
resources of the institution. There is no doubt 
that a prescribed system is indefinitely cheaper 
than an elective system; for with only one 
curriculum of elementary courses to provide, 
a college can get along with a comparatively 
small number of inferior teachers. A broad 



172 THE ELECTIVE SYSTEM 

elective system requires many teachers of high 
quality ; a prescribed curriculum needs only a 
few teachers, and those need not be advanced 
students or investigators. A professor who 
gives half his time to advanced work with 
classes of five to fifteen students is a far more 
costly article than a professor who deals only 
with classes of fifty to two hundred students. 
Nevertheless, the great increase in number 
and merit of the teaching staff in American 
universities of late years is not all due to the 
development of the elective system. A signifi- 
cant part of the increased expense for salaries 
is due to the increased amount of individual 
instruction given to students by experts in 
their several subjects. It is unnecessary to say 
that although this increased cost has hindered 
many institutions in the process of develop- 
ing a wide elective system, the money thus 
spent is the most productive of all educational 
expenditures. 

Finally, the permanence of the elective sys- 
tem is assured by the demonstrated fact that 
it provides on a large scale an invaluable 



AN ADDITION TO HUMAN FEEEDOM 173 

addition to human freedom, and provides this 
precious freedom for the most highly trained, 
and therefore the most productive and influ- 
ential, persons. When the student of history 
reviews the great achievements of the human 
race, he comes to the conclusion that those 
achievements which have brought deliverance 
from some form of terror or oppression, or 
have been gains for some sort of freedom, 
have proved to be institutionally the most 
durable achievements, — one might almost say 
the only durable. 



METHODS OF INSTRUCTION 

Methods of university instruction have 
changed almost completely within fifty years. 
The method of recitation from a book is al- 
most extinct, except in language instruction ; 
the lecture method, after being greatly ex- 
panded, has been subsequently reduced quan- 
titatively, and much changed in quality; the 
laboratory method with its congeners has been 
introduced, and now occupies a large part of 
the field; and the demand made on the stu- 
dent for written work of many sorts — themes, 
note-books, problems, reports, and theses — 
has become incessant. Fifty years ago, the uni- 
versity teacher at the end of the hour gave 
out a lesson in a text-book — so many pages — 
and expected his class to recite that lesson to 
him at the next meeting. Fifteen or twenty 
students would take part in this recitation, 
which was in the main an exercise of the 



THE RECITATION METHOD 175 

memory. The student recited a bit of the book ; 
the teacher ordinarily made no comment what- 
ever on a good recitation, confining himself to 
efforts to extract some fragments of the text 
from the incompetent or neglectful members 
of the class. The good students could of course 
derive no profit whatever from such an exer- 
cise, except practice in making a brief state- 
ment from memory before the class. The poor 
students made public exhibition of their insuf- 
ficiency; but were seldom either mortified or 
stimulated thereby, for experience taught them 
that the consequences of habitual failure in 
recitations were not serious — they remained in 
college, if they were regular in attendance on 
prescribed exercises, both secular and religious. 
Fifty years ago, the lectures were few in 
number, and were not supported, as lectures 
are to-day, by lantern-slide illustrations, and by 
combination with note-taking, prescribed read- 
ing, quizzes, and examinations. The lecture 
courses were short, and lay outside the main 
system. They were, however, oases of intel- 
lectual interest in a thirsty land. In those days 



176 METHODS OF INSTRUCTION 

there were no laboratories open to college 
undergraduates ; so that the individualistic 
teaching of students in laboratories, now so 
common, was then unknown except in a few 
embryonic scientific schools. 

The prime object of university methods of 
teaching to-day is to make the individual stu- 
dent think, and do something himself, and 
not merely to take in and remember other 
people's thoughts ; to induce the student to do 
some thinking and acting on his own account, 
and not merely to hear or read about other 
people's doings. Bearing this main object 
in mind, the student of educational adminis- 
tration will review with interest the various 
methods of instruction now in use. 

The recitation still persists and will persist in 
the language departments of a university. In 
a recitation the student can be called upon to 
translate the foreign language into English, to 
comment on the text, and to translate English 
into the foreign language. He can read aloud 
in the foreign language, and write it from 
dictation. These are all acts indispensable to 



USE OF THE RECITATION 177 

his acquiring the language ; and, on the whole, 
experience has shown that these activities on 
the student's part are the most helpful pro- 
cesses in acquiring any new language. To that 
end the recitation is the most profitable exer- 
cise which has been invented. Experience has 
proved, however, that for the individual stu- 
dent the recitation is advantageous in direct 
proportion to the fewness of the students who 
take part in it. It requires a very skiKul and 
energetic teacher to make a language reci- 
tation profitable for a class numbering more 
than thirty or thirty-five students. Twenty 
to twenty-five members is a wiser Hmit for the 
average teacher. 

Beyond the language departments the use- 
fulness of the recitation in universities is 
rather limited. It can be used in small propor- 
tion in connection with large lecture courses, 
and is there often called the quiz ; and it may 
also be applied in a rather different form in 
those elementary subjects which require drill 
on problems or appKcations, as, for instance, 
in mathematics, and parts of physics, and in 



178 METHODS OF INSTRUCTION 

formal logic. Such use of the reciting method 
for drilling students together in problem- 
solving is facilitated by the provision of large 
blackboard areas in the rooms used. Every 
member of a section or class can then be 
kept at work for a considerable portion of 
the hour, and yet the whole class will see 
the solutions of a large part of the problems 
given out. 

In some university departments the lecture 
became the principal means of instruction as 
the recitation was abandoned; but it was the 
unaided lecture in the least commendable forms. 
Thus in teaching law the professors gave series 
of lectures which constituted treatises on the 
several branches of the law, and gave the same 
lectures year after year. They referred students 
to cases, but the attitude of the student was 
purely receptive; the student took no part in 
the exercise, he was merely listening and taking 
notes; and no pains were taken to make sure 
that he mastered, or even looked at, the cases 
referred to. When the law professor had pub- 
lished a series of treatises, his lectures often 



USE OF THE LECTURE 179 

degenerated into running comment on his 
printed books. 

In medicine, the pure lecture, without illus- 
tration, prevailed to an astonishing extent. 
Even the clinical teaching was given largely 
by lectures of a descriptive or expository kind, 
often without simultaneous exhibition of spe- 
cimens or pictures. In the Harvard Medical 
School of fifty years ago, there was no labora- 
tory open to students except the disorderly 
and dirty dissecting-room ; but for nearly four 
months of the year there were five consecutive 
lectures — humorously called didactic lec- 
tures — on as many different subjects every 
morning during the week. To be sure, medi- 
cal education had another side which saved it 
from habitual failure, — the observation work 
in hospitals and dispensaries, and the memory 
work on manuals and dictionaries of medicine 
and surgery. 

In the arts and sciences, lectures during the 
first half of the period under consideration 
— the past fifty years — gradually displaced 
the recitation, the lecturers relying on periodic 



180 METHODS OF INSTRUCTION 

examinations to test tbe industry of the stu- 
dents and their own success; but gradually 
the university faculties became convinced that 
the plain lecture, without carefully organized 
aids, was an unsuccessful method of teaching, 
because it left the student in a passive and 
inactive condition, and procured from him no 
output, except spasmodic efforts of memory 
just before the periodic examinations. The 
last twenty years have seen a great reduction 
in the number of lectures, and the invention 
of various supplements to the work of the 
lecturer, and of requirements accompanying 
attendance at lectures. 

The first of these supplements is prescribed 
reading. This reading is of various kinds and 
degrees in different subjects, and under dif- 
ferent professors. Sometimes it consists of a 
series of books used thoroughly one at a time ; 
sometimes of three or four books to be used 
simultaneously, though in parts only ; some- 
times of a long list of books from which the 
student may make his own selections, or to 
•which the lecturer will make specific refer- 



PRESCRIBED READING 181 

ences from day to day. The selection of this 
reading matter is an important part of the 
professor's function. If he recommends only 
a few books, the student may reasonably be 
expected to buy them ; but if he recommends 
many, ownership on the part of the student 
is impossible, and it becomes the business of 
the university library or of the department's 
library to supply them. This involves large 
expenditures for books on the part of the 
university, if the number of students in the 
courses concerned be large. The library must 
be enabled to provide many copies of books 
often referred to ; and to keep accessible in the 
reading-rooms thousands of books which are 
not allowed to leave the library, and are there- 
fore called reserved books. At many Ameri- 
can universities arrangements of this sort have 
been successfully made, and are in good work- 
ing order. 

The books having been selected and made 
accessible, how shall the lecturer know that 
his students make use of them ; and how can 
he ascertain at the same time whether his stu- 



182 METHODS OF INSTRUCTION 

dents are absorbing what he says to them, 
and reflecting on it? To accomplish these 
objects, two methods are in use, — periodi- 
cal written examinations, and frequent oral 
or partly oral conferences or recitations con- 
ducted by assistants. 

Written examinations lasting one, two, or 
three hours are held at intervals of about 
two months or oftener. If four examinations 
are held during the year, two of them may be 
three-hour examinations, and the other two 
one-hour. This method is open to the objec- 
tion that the students may work hard only 
spasmodically, namely, shortly before each 
examination ; the rest of the time they may 
be in a passive condition, more or less enter- 
tained and interested, perhaps, but not using 
their own minds actively on the subject. The 
method is good enough for courses of instruc- 
tion which are intended to be only introduc- 
tions to a thorough survey, or outline sketches 
of a great subject for persons who may, or 
may not, propose a systematic and thorough 
study of it. There is wholesome use in a uni- 



ENFORCING REGULAR WORK 183 

versity for courses of that nature ; but they 
do not make part of its most serious and pro- 
ductive work. 

In order to enforce regular work on his 
lectures and on the prescribed reading of his 
course, the professor may relinquish one 
period out of his three a week, or one period 
out of his six a fortnight, and devote that 
hour to a wholly different kind of exercise, 
placing this exercise in the charge of a younger 
and less experienced man, who holds the rank 
of instructor or assistant. If the class be a 
large one, — several hundreds, — it should be 
divided into sections containing not more than 
twenty-five to thirty members. The exercise 
should be conducted as a recitation on the 
lectures and reading of the week, or fortnight, 
just elapsed ; or the hour may be divided into 
two parts, the first fifteen or twenty minutes 
being devoted to writing answers to a single 
question placed before the whole section, and 
the rest of the period to oral recitation or dis- 
cussion. A skilful and alert instructor can 
sometimes use the whole hour profitably for 



184 METHODS OF INSTRUCTION 

active discussion with tlie students before 
him, — discussion in which the students them- 
selves take the major part. If a portion of the 
hour be given to writing, the papers written 
should be corrected and graded by the in- 
structor. The exercise should always afford 
the means of ascertaining whether each stu- 
dent in the course has been attending to the 
subject during the past week, or fortnight, 
and of marking or grading his work. 

In largely attended courses one instructor 
or assistant can deal effectively with two or 
three sections, but if there are hundreds of 
students in the course, several instructors or 
assistants will be required. These men ought 
always to be selected with care by the depart- 
ment, on nomination of the professor most 
nearly concerned with the course. They should 
always be advanced students of the subject, 
and holders of one or more of the higher de- 
grees of the university they serve, or of some 
other university. On their attainments and 
personal quality will depend in good measure 
the effectiveness of the course in which they 



THE WORK OF ASSISTANTS 185 

work, and the success of the professor. If 
several assistants have to be employed^ the 
professor should meet them each week, or each 
fortnight, as the case may be, to agree with 
them on the questions they shall put to their 
several sections for answer in writing, to in- 
quire into the progress of the several sections, 
and to make the work of the instructors ac- 
cordant as regards method and rate of pro- 
gress, and just as regards grades or marks. In 
a course of moderate size which needs only 
one assistant, greater liberty can be given to 
the one helper than is prudent in a large 
course divided into many sections with sev- 
eral assistants. In the latter case the professor 
should make every effort to procure a harmo- 
nious result for all the different sections. 

The work done by assistants in large uni- 
versity courses is, as a rule, highly profitable 
to them, particularly if they are proposing to 
become teachers themselves. They are brought 
into intimate association with an expert pro- 
fessor, who has a strong interest in guiding 
them towards an effective method of teaching 



186 METHODS OF INSTRUCTION 

for their own use, and who imparts to them in 
the process the best results of his own expe- 
rience. As a matter of fact, to serve as an 
assistant to a successful professor in a univer- 
sity course is the best thing a young scholar 
can do towards getting a good position for 
himself. It is therefore possible to procure 
competent assistants for this important work 
who will serve for two or three years; but 
every department must take thought for a 
steady supply of such helpers. The function is 
not fit for capable and ambitious men beyond 
a moderate number of years. If it were made 
a long-period function, the right sort of young 
scholar would not accept it. 

The great change in methods of university 
teaching during the last fifty years is the intro- 
duction of laboratory teaching in the sciences, 
pure and applied. So long as these subjects 
were taught by means of books and lectures 
more or less illustrated, the student got from 
them a training similar to that he obtained 
from the study of languages, history, and phi- 
losophy. They trained his memory for facts 



LABORATORY WORK 187 

and his powers of comparison, discrimination, 
and classification ; but when, between forty 
and fifty years ago, laboratory work for the 
individual student was introduced on a large 
scale, first in chemistry and physics, then in 
natural history, and later in a large variety of 
medical subjects, a new day dawned for the 
teaching of all the liberal arts and sciences, 
and for a great deal of professional teaching. 
In laboratory work the individual student is 
obHged to use actively and accurately his own 
eyes and hands, to record correctly the results 
of his observations, and to apprehend the 
general principle or law which determines the 
sequences of the phenomena he observes. In 
any given experiment he may be dealing with 
a multiplicity of details; but he must take 
account of the coordinating or classifying 
principle which runs through all the details. 
In the laboratory he is himself at work with 
body and mind, and he is at work by himself, 
though under the guidance of an instructor, 
not much older than himself, perhaps, but 
more experienced, and fully capable of guid- 



188 METHODS OF INSTRUCTION 

ing intelligently the work of the comparative 
novice. 

In well-conducted laboratory courses of in- 
struction, a remarkable combination is made 
of all available methods to induce the student 
to think actively and apply himself vigorously. 
Such courses often use one after the other the 
short illustrated lecture, note-taking at the 
lecture, individual work at a laboratory coun- 
ter, note-making with drawings and written 
descriptions during the experiments, problem- 
solving on matters connected with the experi- 
mentation, and the periodical quiz or oral 
examination. On the other hand, many labora- 
tory courses make little account of periodical 
examinations in writing; because the daily 
testing of the student's acquaintance with the 
subject is so prompt and efficient, and the 
results of the work he does in the laboratory 
indicate so clearly his attainments, that exam- 
inations in writing covering the work of two 
months or more are relatively unimportant. 
The lecture as a part of a course of instruction 
which depends chiefly on laboratory work may 



LECTUKE — MANUAL — QUIZ 189 

be either long or short, either illustrated or 
not illustrated, although it is generally illus- 
trated. Note-taking at the lecture may be either 
required or prohibited. It is often prohibited 
at short demonstrations given to small groups 
of students placed close about the demonstra- 
tor's table, when the object of the demon- 
stration is to show what the students are 
themselves to do in the laboratory during 
their next period of work. 

When hour-long lectures intended to bring 
out relationships, principles, or laws, make 
part of a laboratory course, the notes taken at 
the lectures are ordinarily supplemented in the 
laboratory by a manual which describes tools, 
processes, and methods of work so fully that 
the student need waste no time and run no 
unnecessary risks. In such subjects as anat- 
omy, botany, and mineralogy, considerable 
quantities of material can be issued to each 
student for careful examination and descrip- 
tion, and at the end of two or three hours of 
such study a short quiz or oral examination 
may be used to advantage with a group of 



190 METHODS OF INSTRUCTION 

students who have been examining similar, 
but not the same, material. The making of 
notes of experiments during the actual experi- 
menting is an invaluable exercise in accuracy 
and order, and in adequacy of description. In 
some courses the notes of each student at 
each exercise are made upon uniform sheets 
of paper arranged for subsequent binding, 
and these sheets are not allowed to be taken 
out of the laboratory. In a natural history 
subject, each sheet will ordinarily contain a 
drawing or drawings, and written descrip- 
tions, presumably drawings and descriptions 
of what the student has seen through his mi- 
croscope. These sheets, dated and signed, are 
preserved in the laboratory for each student 
to the end of the course, and may then be 
bound as a record of the student's work within 
the laboratory. In other courses the notes are 
kept in plain note-books which may be taken 
out of the laboratory for inserting computa- 
tions which the experimenter cannot stop to 
make while in the laboratory, or for writing 
out the conclusions, or inferences, which the 



UNREASONING LABORATORY WORK 191 

data experimentally obtained warrant. The 
laboratory notes, however made, are always 
open to the inspection of the assistant in the 
course, and supply one means of estimating 
the value of the students' work. 

There is a danger to be guarded against 
in all laboratory instruction which has been 
highly systematized, the danger that the stu- 
dent may follow processes described in a good 
manual without ever reflecting on the reasons 
for the processes. The student's own work is 
then reduced to a mechanical following of 
directions. His inquiry constantly is, am I 
getting the reactions or phenomena which 
the manual says I ought to get? A student 
who works in this way will be entirely helpless 
without his manual, and will lose the training 
in reasoning which his course ought to supply. 
Laboratory assistants need to be constantly on 
their guard against this mechanical, unreflect- 
ing way of working on the part of students they 
direct. It is often necessary to tell beginners 
what they ought to see, or might see, under 
the existing conditions ; but it is never safe to 



192 METHODS OF INSTRUCTION 

allow the student to rest satisfied with verify- 
ing the assistant's or the book's statement. 
The student who goes through a well-devised 
laboratory course can hardly fail to gain some 
advantage from the obligatory accuracy in 
seeing, touching, measuring, weighing, draw- 
ing, and describing; but it is quite possi- 
ble that a student whose experimental results 
are satisfactory should nevertheless miss alto- 
gether the training in scientific reasoning 
which the subject is fitted to impart. To pre- 
vent such shortcomings, the assistant should 
always be on the alert, and the professor re- 
sponsible for the course should exercise an 
active supervision over the instruction which 
his assistants give at the laboratory tables. 

In many laboratory courses it is advisable 
to supplement the lectures of the professor 
from time to time by short lectures given to 
sections of the class by the assistant or assist- 
ants. Part of the hour, occasionally devoted 
to this supplementary lecture on difficulties or 
details, may be advantageously devoted to 
answering in writing a question set before the 



PROBLEM WORK 193 

wLole section. These short written quizzes can 
be best directed to ascertaining whether the 
reasoning of the subject has been apprehended 
by the class. Precautions against superficial 
or mechanical work are most valuable in the 
comparatively elementary courses resorted to 
by large numbers of students. In the advanced 
courses where the numbers are small, and most 
of the members of any class are persons 
bent on the serious pursuit of the subject they 
have chosen, these methods of control are 
hardly needed, or at least may be used much 
less frequently. 

Problem work is an important aid in many 
laboratory courses. Typewritten or printed 
problems in considerable variety are given out 
to a whole class for immediate solution in the 
room where they are issued, the problems being 
of course closely connected with the work 
done in the course during the preceding three 
or four weeks. The written work thus ob- 
tained will enable the professor and his assist- 
ants to judge whether the instruction given 
to the class has been understood and assimi- 



194 METHODS OF INSTRUCTION 

lated in fair measure ; and at the same time it 
will give good students a certain confidence 
in their own attainments, and reveal to incom- 
petent students the nature, and perhaps the 
cause, of their deficiencies. In every well- 
conducted laboratory course, however, far the 
greater part of the students' time and strength 
should be devoted to the laboratory work, in- 
cluding the making of full descriptive notes. 
Lectures, quizzes oral or written, problem 
working, and the study of the manual should 
all take a secondary place. The main object 
in view should always be the training of the 
students' senses, imagination, and reasoning 
power in actual experimentation. 

The principles of laboratory instruction are 
available in many other university departments 
besides those ordinarily called scientific. Thus 
in the study of the fine arts, drawing and the 
careful study of objects or specimens should 
have a great part. In the study of architecture 
and landscape architecture, the draughting- 
room plays the part of the laboratory in chem- 
istry or physics. In engineering, mining, and 



DRAWING — DRAUGHTING — FIELD-WORK 195 

forestry, the student obtains in his field-work 
much of the same sort of training which the 
student of botany, zoology, histology, or bac- 
teriology gets in his laboratory. This is the 
reason that all universities are giving so much 
more attention than they formerly did to field 
studies for engineers in surveying, geodesy, 
and geography, to actual work in mines and 
metallurgical establishments for men who pro- 
pose to be mining engineers, and to work in 
woods and lumber camps for men who propose 
to be foresters. This is the reason that uni- 
versities are providing and carrying on summer 
camps for the actual conducting by students 
of the out-of-door processes of these various 
industries. Young men cannot be initiated into 
these professions by the use of books, models, 
drawings, photographs, and lantern-slides 
alone. They must have the training of actual 
labor in the real laboratories of these indus- 
trial processes. To reading they must add 
doing in their own persons. The student of 
these subjects must combine study of theory 
with practice; and he must be personally 



196 METHODS OF INSTRUCTION 

familiar with the best applications of the 
soundest theories. It is this combination of 
theoretical and historical knowledge with 
practical skill which in these days makes the 
successful investigator, professional man, or 
business man. In his training neither the the- 
oretical part nor the practical part can be 
safely omitted. 

A method of instruction has come into use 
in many university departments which was 
imported from Germany, or adapted from the 
work done there for the degree of Doctor of 
Philosophy, namely, the thesis, or long written 
paper on a subject assigned by the professor, 
or selected by the student in consultation with 
the professor. The thesis in its original sense 
is used here without much change as one of 
the qualifying tests for the degree of Doctor 
of Philosophy, except that in American prac- 
tice the thesis tends to surpass in length and 
elaborateness the German original ; but as an 
element in undergraduate work the thesis has 
been shortened and has lost its character of 
an original contribution to learning. It has 



THESES — REPORTS — BRIEFS 197 

become rather a report on some limited sub- 
ject which the student can be supposed to 
make by a process of summarizing and digest- 
ing his reading on a given theme. It is now 
often used as a means of ascertaining that the 
student has really read the books prescribed 
to him. When thus used, the best way of ob- 
taining a satisfactory thesis is to require the 
student to present to the professor or his as- 
sistant several weeks before the thesis is due, 
and after he has accomplished the reading 
prescribed, a brief of his proposed thesis in 
duplicate. The professor or his assistant should 
go over this brief with the student, listening 
to the student's explanation of the manner in 
which he proposes to fill out the brief. One 
copy of the brief should then be left with the 
professor or assistant in charge. The thesis 
should then be handed in punctually on the 
day appointed, and should never be accepted 
at all on any later day. The evils of postponed 
written work are very great, so that the pre- 
sentation of written work at the appointed 
time should be rigidly enforced. Care should 



198 METHODS OF INSTKUCTION 

also be taken that the theses demanded of 
the same student by different departments 
be properly distributed throughout the year ; 
so that there may be no unreasonable de- 
mand for written work in any one part of the 
year. Thesis work can be made analogous to 
problem work in some departments, — as, for 
instance, in physics, by converting the thesis 
into a report on some critical investigation or 
famous experiment, or in economics by con- 
verting the thesis into a report upon some 
special industrial or financial problem which 
has been solved in practice, or is in process of 
solution. 

All this written work gives the student 
who does it thoroughly, excellent practice in 
accumulating and sorting materials for dis- 
cussion, summarizing arguments, and describ- 
ing clearly complicated proceedings ; and in- 
asmuch as facility in such work is often highly 
useful to its possessor in after-life, much is to 
be said in defense or advocacy of the thesis. 
On the other hand, the thesis often raises 
grave questions in the minds of both student 



THE CASE METHOD 199 

and instructor as to the degree of independ- 
ent labor which it represents, or rather as to 
the amount of copied and quoted matter which 
it may properly contain. The same difficulties, 
however, occur in after-life whenever a writer 
tries to give a new account of transactions or 
processes not of his discovery or invention, 
the materials for his description being already 
in print. 

One of the most valuable methods of uni- 
versity instruction which has been developed 
within the last thirty-five years is the so-called 
case method of teaching law, a method in- 
vented about 1871 bv the late Professor C. C. 
Langdell of the Harvard Law School, and 
developed by himself and his colleagues in 
that School in the course of about fifteen 
years. Professor Langdell's fundamental idea 
was that the law should be taught, not from 
treatises or from lectures which would prob- 
ably be either imperfect treatises or commen- 
taries on treatises, but at first hand from the 
records of actual cases in which important 
principles or practices had been laid down 



200 METHODS OF INSTRUCTION 

and established by judicial tribunals. He 
began by teaching the subject of contracts 
through a selection of leading cases, to which 
he referred his students as the raw material 
of their studies. When his students had read 
the cases on a given topic, to which he had 
referred them, he discussed with them the 
facts of each case, and the principle or doc- 
trine established therein. The students were 
expected to state from memory the facts of 
the case, and to give a summary of the argu- 
ments, and of the decision of the judge. Pro- 
fessor Langdell took part in and guided the 
discussion by both questions and answers of 
his own; but the class did the larger part of 
the work during the lecture hour. It soon 
appeared that it was highly inconvenient for 
the many students to get timely access to the 
few copies of the reports to which Professor 
Langdell referred them, and he therefore un- 
dertook the preparation of a collection of 
select cases on contracts. This selection was 
followed in a few years by a series of volumes 
of select cases on the subjects of instruction 



BOOKS OF SELECTED CASES 201 

in the Harvard Law School, almost all of 
which were prepared by Professor LangdelFs 
colleagues ; and his method was gradually- 
adopted by most of the teachers in the School. 
The possession of these volumes of cases makes 
it unnecessary for the student to resort inces- 
santly to the volumes of reports on the library 
shelves, unless the professors revise their se- 
lections of cases, or wish to add cases of a 
date later than that of the volumes in use. 
With this method there is no lecturing in the 
ordinary sense ; there is active discussion on 
the statement of the cases as made by the 
students, a discussion in which the professor 
and many students take part. The better stu- 
dents like to be called upon to state the main 
features of a case, and like to discuss them 
when stated. Not all the students of a given 
class take part ; but the Socratic process is 
more interesting to a mere listener than a 
lecture, and more impressive. The method 
requires an unusual degree of alertness and 
vivacity on the part of the professor in put- 
ting questions and keeping the discussion to 



202 METHODS OF INSTRUCTION 

the point, and skill on his part in making a 
quick and concise resume of the discussion 
for the benefit of the whole class. It is, on 
the whole, a more fatiguing operation for the 
professor than that of lecturing ; because he 
is obliged to give the keenest attention to all 
the inquiries and suggestions of the eager 
students before him. He must also see that 
the time is divided proportionately among the 
different topics which he intends to have 
covered during the hour. 

The method was much derided at the start 
by lawyers who had been brought up on 
treatises and commentaries on treatises; but 
it soon justified itself in a conclusive way. 
After a few years it was demonstrated that 
young men who had been thus trained to the 
practice of the law could make themselves 
more useful to their seniors in the offices they 
entered than fresh law graduates had ever 
been before, and than young men contempo- 
raneously trained in other methods. There 
followed a rapid growth of the Harvard Law 
School which has continued to this day, in 



SPREAD OF THE CASE METHOD 203 

spite of numerous restrictive measures which 
demanded better preparation for admission, 
more years of residence, and finally a prelimi- 
nary degree in arts or science as a condition 
of entrance to the School. 

The method has now spread to many other 
law schools, and to other departments of 
American universities — to the latter with 
interesting modifications. It is directly appli- 
cable to the study of constitutional law, and 
in large measure to the study of diplomacy, 
because collections of original documents can 
be made for the study of these subjects which 
are analogous to the case-books used in the 
study of legal subjects. In economics also 
the method is applicable, with only slight 
modifications. Thus, the century-long warfare 
between capital and labor can be profitably 
studied from a collection of reports on the 
most important lockouts and strikes of the 
period, condensed and summarized if need be. 
The successive gains made by the trade 
unions, the good and evil they have done, 
the defences set up by capital, and the inven- 



204 METHODS OF INSTRUCTION 

tions made by capital to meet the new condi- 
tions of the labor market, can all be brought 
home to the student vividly and impressively 
through the reports of the actual conflicts, 
without the use of any treatise, or history, or 
of any theoretical statement of doctrine on 
the subject. 

One of the most interesting applications of 
the case method in other departments occurs 
in clinical medicine, a department where the 
ordinary method has been to show the stu- 
dents, gathered about the patient, how the 
history of the case has been obtained by the 
physician and the nurse, how the symptoms 
have been studied and recorded, and how the 
just diagnosis, treatment, and prognosis are 
to be arrived at. This lesson is given on or 
near the patient in a hospital, dispensary, or 
out-patient department. To supplement this 
instruction given over sick or injured per- 
sons, a case-book has been contrived in which 
a large number of cases are described, with 
all the records used by the physician making 
a hospital visit, and with the results of thor- 



SOURCE-BOOKS 205 

ough examination of the patient. From this 
printed report of the case, the student is ex- 
pected to make his own diagnosis, to prescribe 
the proper treatment, and to make the prog- 
nosis. It is evident that this method can be 
profitably used with regard to a great variety 
of diseases and injuries ; so that the stu- 
dent shall find in such a case-book means of 
reviewing his knowledge, and of testing his 
capacity to deal with actual cases. This is a 
combination of the case-book in the law with 
a book of problems in geometry, or physics, 
or economic geology. 

Useful modifications of the case-book are 
the source-books which are now found useful 
in university departments of history, philoso- 
phy, and public finance. These books are of 
course various in character according to their 
subjects ; but the fundamental idea is that of 
Professor Langdell's book of cases. They are 
intended to put at the disposition of the stu- 
dent documents which have proved to be of 
fundamental importance, summaries of life- 
careers which were extraordinarily influential. 



206 METHODS OF INSTRUCTION 

or extracts from great authors which contain 
the substance of their teachings, or the seeds 
of later growths. Books of this nature can be 
profitably used either to supplement lectures, 
that is, as parts of prescribed reading, or to 
supply the themes of oral discussions which 
replace lectures. 

Finally, university examinations have been 
greatly improved and systematized within the 
last fifty years, and have become a highly pro- 
fitable part of university discipline. American 
experience on this subject is brief compared 
with English. The first written examinations 
ever held in Harvard University were intro- 
duced there in the year 1857 by two young 
tutors in mathematics. The written examina- 
tion has since been studied from every possible 
point of view, and adopted in all departments 
of university work. They are much more than 
means of grading students and compelling 
the indifferent or careless student to do some 
work; they constitute a valuable means of 
training, inasmuch as they prepare young 
men to meet the similar crises which they 



EXAMINATIONS 207 

constantly encounter in after-life, particularly 
in the professions^ — both learned and scien- 
tific, — in the public service, and in business 
administration. 

The professional man is constantly brought 
to tests much severer than any university 
examination can ever be. The lawyer must 
prepare himself, often under great difficul- 
ties, to plead his case on a given day. The 
physician may find himself called at any mo- 
ment to a sick or injured person, whose real 
condition he must discover as soon as pos- 
sible, and must treat forthwith. He must also 
decide what to say to the patient, and to the 
patient's friends and relatives. He needs to 
have at his fingers' ends all the knowledge 
and skill applicable to the case in hand, and 
he needs it on a sudden. The architect finds 
it to his interest to present within a few weeks 
a design for a kind of structure which is not 
familiar to him, or which must be adapted to 
new conditions of construction and use. He 
must quickly summon all his forces, and work 
at high speed to produce within a few weeks 



208 METHODS OF INSTRUCTION 

an attractive competitive design. In all intel- 
lectual callings there are periods of intense 
labor to prepare for a crisis. For all such 
work the university examinations provide ap- 
propriate and invaluable training. On this 
account the disappearance of promotion and 
graduation examinations from many schools 
— both elementary and secondary — is greatly 
to be deplored; the more so because college 
and university examinations are sure to be 
lowered in standard when the students who 
enter the colleges and universities have had 
no experience in examinations prior to be- 
coming members of their college or university 
on certificates from the secondary schools. 
A generation is growing up in many parts of 
the country which has successfully avoided 
examinations, having acquired the belief that 
examinations are an evil, instead of a profit- 
able means of sound training. 

A peculiar form of examination which has 
been developed in some university departments 
deserves mention. When an examination is to 
be held on a half-year's course in the differen- 



LONG QUESTION-PAPERS 209 

tial calculus, for example, instead of preparing 
a question-paper containing eight or ten ques- 
tions, the instructor responsible for the course 
prepares a set of forty or fifty questions which 
really cover the field of instruction in that 
course, so that any one who could answer all 
the questions would demonstrate that he had 
possessed himself of the substance of the in- 
struction given during the half-year. This long 
paper is given to the students three or four 
weeks before the date of the examination. On 
the examination day the class is told to answer 
six or eight of the questions on the list. This 
method is analogous to the use of a fall syl- 
labus to define to a class at the beginning the 
professor's conception of the subjects he shall 
cover during the entire course which they 
are entering on. In any university there will 
be some departments in which this mode of 
examination can be occasionally adopted to 
advantage. 

The highest instruction given in the Ameri- 
can universities is given in those intimate 
meetings of small groups of advanced students 



210 METHODS OF INSTRUCTION 

with their teachers, which are variously called 
seminaries, conferences, or research courses. 
The manner of conducting these meetings 
varies considerably in different departments. 
In the mathematical, scientific, historical, and 
philosophical departments the main object is 
often to give students opportunities of making 
acquaintance at first hand with original au- 
thorities, and to teach them by great examples 
the methods of research. The work is then 
apt to consist of reading typical texts and 
documents, and the records of epoch-making 
experiments or inquiries, of short studies on 
special topics of ancient or modern inquiry, 
and of comments, discussions, and criticisms 
by the members of the class. One field of 
study may be chosen by the teacher for the 
whole group, or a special topic may be assigned 
to each individual student. While the main 
purpose of such work is to gain familiarity 
with the processes of investigation and with 
the weighing of evidence, the incidental know- 
ledge acquired is an important part of the 
total result. In seminaries or conferences on 



SEMINARIES — CONFERENCES 211 

natural history subjects, the critical exami- 
nation of specimens may find a place, and 
particularly the study of materials which the 
students have collected in the field. In eco- 
nomics the instructors undertake the guidance 
of students in independent investigations of 
financial, industrial, and transportation prob- 
lems ; and the seminary gives opportunity for 
the presentation and discussion of the results 
of the students' researches. In languages and 
literature the seminary courses generally have 
two purposes in view. First, to make a thor- 
ough study of selected works with special ref- 
erence to text criticism, etymology, and the 
history of grammatical forms. Secondly, to 
acquaint the student with the methods of lin- 
guistic and literary research by means of lim- 
ited original investigations carried on by him 
under the supervision of the teacher. 

The members of any seminary may follow 
special lines of inquiry, pursue their own work, 
and confer individually at stated times with 
the instructors under whose guidance they are 
conducting their researches ; but the seminary 



212 METHODS OF INSTRUCTION 

or conference also gives opportunity to the 
instructor to present results of his own work 
to the advanced students in his subject. A 
teacher who is developing a given subject for 
his own purposes may often get valuable aid 
from his seminary students, partly in collect- 
ing materials, partly in verifying facts or cita- 
tions, and partly through student discussion 
and criticism of his own processes and state- 
ments. 

In some departments, meetings, called con- 
ferences, of all the instructors and advanced 
students are held statedly to promote inde- 
pendent research and close intercourse be- 
tween instructors and students, and to hear 
and discuss papers prepared by the student 
members. This conference method of instruc- 
tion has been usually developed in the gradu- 
ate schools of arts and sciences ; but it is now 
used in various university departments, under- 
graduate as well as graduate. It is the climax 
of university teaching. 

One excellent result of the changes in uni- 
versity teaching during the past fifty years is 



CONTACT OF TEACHER AND STUDENT 213 

that the amount of direct intercourse between 
teacher and student has greatly increased, so 
that the personal influence of teacher on stu- 
dent has been much enhanced. 



VI 



SOCIAL ORGANIZATION — THE PRESI- 
DENT—GENERAL ADMINISTRATION 

The American colleges and universities, with 
a few exceptions in peculiar communities, con- 
tain representatives of all grades of American 
society, namely, some small number of rich 
men's sons, a much larger number of young 
men whose families can help but little, or not 
at all, towards their education, and a strong 
majority of students whose families are neither 
rich nor poor. In any college or university 
the rich class will be represented to a higher 
percentage than in society at large; because 
most men who succeed greatly in business, or in 
the professions, endeavor to get their sons into 
college, knowing that the only way to maintain 
through several generations a good family 
position once won is through superior educa- 
tion. In the large proportion of poor young 
men in any college there will be a consid- 



THE COLLEGE A SOCIAL MIXTURE 215 

erable number of youths who have distanced 
the mass of their contemporaries and associ- 
ates because of some unusual mental gift, or 
of some bodily excellence which has enabled 
them to bear an unusual amount of work, as, 
for example, the work of earning their living 
while pursuing strenuous studies. There will 
naturally be a larger percentage of idlers 
among the rich students than in either of the 
other groups, because the rich lack the motive 
of impending need; but nevertheless, many 
of the richer students will be found in the 
upper quarter of their respective classes. In 
Harvard College, for example, there are both 
honorary and stipend scholarships, an honor- 
ary scholarship being conferred on every stu- 
dent, having no need of pecuniary aid, who 
stands as high as, or higher than, the lowest 
scholar in his class who receives a stipend 
scholarship. Now, in almost all the classes in 
Harvard College there are as many honorary 
scholarship-holders as there are stipend schol- 
arship-holders ; indeed, there are often more 
honorary than stipend scholarship-holders. The 



216 SOCIAL ORGANIZATION 

poor students are as a rule steady workers. 
They bring that quality with them to college ; 
for without it they could not have reached the 
college. In the great majority of students who 
are neither rich nor poor, every variety of dis- 
position and capacity appears ; and it is they 
who in the long run determine the social 
quality of a college, for their manners and cus- 
toms and their common sentiments naturally 
prevail, although modified somewhat by the 
manners and sentiments of the richer students 
on the one hand and of the poorer on the 
other. 

When a college or university is started early 
in a new or pioneer community, its students 
may for a time reproduce the homogeneous- 
ness of the surrounding community as regards 
occupation, education, and habitual family 
life; but even a single generation may suffice 
to introduce into that college the heteroge- 
neousness above described. 

It is of course highly desirable that stu- 
dents of all sorts mix together freely, and 
come to understand each other during the 



DORMITORIES 217 

period of college life. What are the means of 
promoting this desirable mixing ? In the first 
place, college halls of chambers, in which stu- 
dents can live in large bodies under healthy- 
conditions and in close association. It is more 
desirable that each dormitory contain rooms 
of different sorts at different prices, than that 
one dormitory should have rooms at high 
rents, and another rooms at low rents; and 
it is also much more desirable that each dor- 
mitory should contain students of different 
ages than that Seniors should be massed in 
one dormitory, and Freshmen in another. The 
managers of dormitories should always seek 
to promote the association of students of dif- 
ferent college standing, and of different scales 
of expenditure. A good invention in college 
halls of chambers is the common-room, a large 
apartment or suite of rooms on the lower floor, 
pleasantly furnished as a common meeting- 
place for the occupants of the hall. 

Under a general regime of liberty for the 
student, it will ordinarily be found impossible 
to prevent groupings of students according to 



S18 SOCIAL ORGANIZATION 

their scales of expenditure ; but this tendency 
should be resisted, so far as it is possible to 
do so, by the renting arrangements of col- 
lege dormitories. It is of course impossible to 
prevent private investors offering students 
desirable suites of rooms at high prices, and 
thereby segregating the richer ; although such 
buildings may always be kept under the su- 
pervision of college of&cers resident therein, 
and in the last resort may be made bad in- 
vestments by means of restrictive college reg- 
ulations. 

It used to be thought among the governors 
of some of the newer American universities 
that students' halls of chambers were natural 
centres of disorder and turbulence, and there- 
fore were undesirable possessions; but this 
view has now been generally abandoned, partly 
because some colleges with dormitories have 
proved to be habitually quieter and more or- 
derly than some colleges without dormitories, 
and partly because experience has shown that 
well-managed dormitories make college .hfe 
more enjoyable and more profitable. Moreover, 



DINING-HALLS 219 

it has now been generally recognized that 
wherever women go to college, well-constructed 
halls of chambers are well-nigh indispensable 
for them. 

Another means of promoting the desirable 
association of students whose families live on 
different scales is the provision of large din- 
ing-halls which can be carried on in a coop- 
erative fashion by associations of students. 
In this way a thousand or more students can 
habitually eat together, at a moderate general 
charge, each individual having the liberty of 
adding to the common diet special articles 
which he orders and pays for individually. 
In such halls some tables may be set apart 
for groups of acquaintances, while others are 
used as in a restaurant. Both dormitories and 
dining-halls, if well managed, will keep down 
the average price of board and lodging in the 
town where the college or university is situ- 
ated, and thereby tend to promote the growth 
of the college, and to maintain its democratic 
quality. 

The mixing of all sorts of students may 



220 SOCIAL ORGANIZATION 

further be promoted by providing large club- 
houses for the use of the whole body of stu- 
dents. A club which contains no more than 
five hundred members is highly useful in this 
respect ; but a club like the Harvard Union, 
which contains fifteen hundred active mem- 
bers, is of course much better ; indeed, such 
a club is a very efficient means of promoting 
an advantageous breadth and variety of ac- 
quaintance among students. Inasmuch as such 
a club must inevitably have a low annual fee, 
it cannot be supported without endowment, 
such as the gift of its building, or the pro- 
vision of a fund the income of which helps to 
pay the running expenses. 

In any old and large university there will 
be found numerous associations of students 
whose membership is determined by some com- 
mon taste or capacity, such, for instance, as 
musical associations, dramatic clubs, and so- 
cieties which meet statedly to discuss a sub- 
ject of common interest, — like the natural 
history societies, and the clubs containing the 
students who are interested in philosophy. 



FRATERNITIES 221 

economics, history, government, law, or medi- 
cine. These groups are made up without the 
slightest reference to the social standing or 
mode of life of their members, membership 
being conditioned solely on capacity and de- 
sire to contribute to the object of the associa- 
tion. These associations often establish among 
their members lifelong intimacies based on 
intellectual affinities. 

The absence, or inadequate supply, of dor- 
mitories in some American colleges and uni- 
versities has given opportunity for the intro- 
duction and successful development of the 
fraternity system. The fraternities, with their 
large and comfortable houses, and their inter- 
esting secrecies, good libraries, and pleasant 
relations with graduate members, organize a 
part of the students of a college or university 
into a number of fixed groups, the new mem- 
bers of each group being ordinarily selected 
within a few weeks of the advent of a Fresh- 
man class, if, indeed, not earlier pledged. In 
a small college the fraternities may each year 
divide among themselves almost the entire 



222 SOCIAL ORGANIZATION 

body of newcomers, leaving but a small rem- 
nant invited into no fraternity, who are 
usually regarded as unfortunates. The fra- 
ternity groups thus hastily formed persist 
throughout the whole college course, and, in- 
deed, last in some measure throughout life ; 
so that when a graduate returns at Commence- 
ment time, he revisits his fraternity quite as 
much as his college. 

In large universities, where fraternity influ- 
ence is comparatively feeble, other means have 
been found of gratifying the desire to meet 
frequently, or even live with, a small group 
of congenial individuals, whose habits of ex- 
penditure are approximately on a level. The 
small clubs, so called, gratify this propensity. 
Twenty to forty men associate themselves to- 
gether, and maintain a house, or some rooms, 
to which they habitually resort for social in- 
tercourse. These clubs, like the fraternities, 
are often helped pecuniarily by former mem- 
bers, who remember gratefully the pleasure 
their club gave them in their own college 
days. These clubs are ordinarily conducted 



SORORITIES 223 

with much privacy; so that some of them 
may occasionally become centres of luxurious, 
or even vicious, living, without this perver- 
sion coming to the knowledge either of the 
college authorities, or of the main body of 
the students. Such lapses are, however, only 
occasional, and are usually corrected either 
by graduate members, or by new members who 
replace the men who have led the club astray. 
The small social clubs generally illustrate the 
principle that " birds of a feather flock to- 
gether," — a principle which obtains in all 
human as well as bird society, and which demo- 
cracy cannot eradicate, and need not wish to. 
Sororities have, in general, the same merits 
and advantages as fraternities, but being of 
more recent origin and serving the sex which 
does not, as a rule, make and accumulate 
money, they have difficulty in procuring en- 
dowment or adequate revenues. They add to 
the social enjoyments of their members, and 
give them a sense of mutual support and of 
good fellowship. They are especially useful 
in co-educational institutions which do not 



224 SOCIAL ORGANIZATION 

possess an adequate number of dormitories 
for women. 

The fraternities and sororities and the social 
clubs in American colleges and universities, 
being small, exclusive, and secretive groups, 
seem inconsistent with democratic principles in 
general, and particularly with the liberal spirit 
of a society of scholars. The fact is, however, 
that the natural human being wants and needs 
for social purposes some group or groups larger 
and more various than the family, but much 
smaller and less various than the entire com- 
munity, or even than the entire membership 
of a society of scholars. For social purposes 
democracy is too near an approach to infinity. 
The limited human being, even when fairly 
educated, craves a limited group of congenial 
associates having some common interest, which, 
for the purposes of a social bond, may as well 
be narrow as broad. 

Fraternities and clubs alike can be utilized 
by sympathetic and respected college officers 
in confidential ways to support good order, 
to root out evil practices, and to control and 



COLLEGE SPIRIT 225 

reform young men who have shown danger- 
ous tendencies. Public misconduct on the part 
of any of its members is held to discredit a fra- 
ternity or club ; so that the officers and past 
members of any respectable fraternity or club 
will labor diligently with erring members, and 
at the instance of college officers will take a 
great deal of trouble to protect a weak brother 
against himself, and to prevent him from in- 
juring the reputation of the society to which 
he belongs. Fraternity or club companions can 
often exert more influence and a more constant 
influence on young men who are going wrong 
than any college officers can exert directly. It 
is essential to this good influence that it be 
private and unofficial so far as the college is 
concerned. 

The phrase college spirit undoubtedly de- 
scribes a real thing, but this spirit is, on the 
whole, much the same in all the American 
colleges and universities which are old enough 
to have traditions and inheritances, variety of 
spirit existing in them only in comparatively 
small proportion. Nevertheless, slight differ- 



226 SOCIAL ORGANIZATION 

ences in tone or atmosphere may produce 
striking effects on the prevailing quality of 
the graduates of different colleges, and these 
effects are often traceable to differences in 
social organization, — the complex result of 
traditions, manners and customs, and trans- 
mitted opinions and sentiments. Even real 
differences of policy may mean only choices 
of different means towards a common end. 
Thus, a real difference among colleges is the 
difference in the degree of freedom permit- 
ted to the individual, and in the importance 
attached to the development of individual 
mental and moral power. Some institutions 
think first of developing individual initiative 
through freedom of the will, and through 
offering to each individual all the best means 
of developing his own personal faculty ; but 
they prefer this course because they believe 
that is the way to promote freedom, efficiency, 
and happiness for the mass of mankind. By 
working primarily for the individual, they 
think they best promote the interests of the 
mass. Such institutions naturally desire to serve 



TRAINING LEADERS — SERVICE ABLENESS 227 

all professions, elevate all occupations, train 
leaders of thought, and equip good administra- 
tors or managers for industries which direct the 
physical and moral capacities of hundreds of 
thousands of people. They believe that effec- 
tive leaders can be produced only in freedom, 
and through the most assiduous attention of 
teachers and governors to individual capacity 
and promise ; but the benefit of the led is 
the ultimate object of training leaders. Other 
institutions believe more in prescription, an 
average product, a gregarious enthusiasm, and 
a unanimous motive. They believe that stud- 
ies should be accessible only in groups made 
up by educational sages, and that sports are 
meritorious in proportion to the amount of 
team-play which they develop. They believe 
in collective wisdom, in cheering sections, and 
consentient multitudes. These differences, how- 
ever, are after all relatively superficial. At 
bottom most of the American institutions of 
the higher education are filled with the mod- 
ern democratic spirit of serviceableness. Teach- 
ers and students alike are profoundly moved 



228 THE PRESIDENT 

by the desire to serve tlie democratic commu- 
nity, to strengthen and maintain free institu- 
tions, and to prove that in time free institutions 
will bring forth in abundance all the best 
fruits of liberal culture, such as artists, schol- 
ars, musicians, poets, and investigators, great 
judges, statesmen, and public servants, as well 
as honorable practitioners in all the learned 
and scientific professions. All the colleges 
boast of the serviceable men they have trained, 
and regard the serviceable patriot as their ideal 
product. This is a thoroughly democratic con- 
ception of their function. 

We pass now to a consideration of the 
administrative offices of a university, and take 
up first the office of president. 

The president of a university is in the first 
place its chief executive officer ; but he should 
also be its leader and seer. In order to give 
the competent man every opportunity to exer- 
cise the functions of a leader and inspirer, he 
should be the presiding officer of the trustees, 
or other property-holding and controlling 



HIS RIGHTS AND FUNCTIONS 229 

board, a member ex-officio of any supervising 
board which the constitution of the university 
may provide, and the presiding of&cer of every 
faculty within the university. There are Amer- 
ican universities in which the president is not 
by right a full member of the board of trus- 
tees; but this is an unfortunate arrangement 
which diminishes to a serious degree the presi- 
dent's authority and influence. 

Fifty years ago, it was not unusual for the 
president of a so-called university to restrict 
his interests and his functions to the college 
or academic department, and to take no part 
in the administration or conduct of the pro- 
fessional schools. This day, however, has gone 
by; and every university president worthy of 
the name now finds opportunities for useful- 
ness in all the professional departments. He 
is able to carry the results of experience in 
one faculty to all the other faculties, and to 
contribute to the proper coordination of the 
work of one faculty with that of another, or 
of all the others. 

In the board of trustees and in all the fac- 



230 THE PRESIDENT 

ulties the president should invariably name 
all committees, never allowing this important 
function to be usurped by any private member 
of these boards. If he uses this power with 
fairness and discretion, he will obtain in the 
standing committees excellent bodies for select- 
ing and formulating those progressive ideas or 
projects which have a chance of commending 
themselves to the governing boards ; and mem- 
bership in such committees will be the means of 
interesting the most serviceable men in feasi- 
ble improvements of policy and practice. The 
selection of members of special committees on 
measures of current interest is also an impor- 
tant function of the president, which calls for 
good judgment on his part in regard to both 
men and measures. Indeed, the selective dis- 
cretion of the president in such matters will, 
in the long run, go far to determine his success 
or non-success in a large and well-established 
university, the government of which is neither 
autocratic nor democratic, but constitutional. 
The relation of the president to the finances 
of a university is different in different States 



HIS FINANCIAL FUNCTION 231 

of the Union, and in State universities as dis- 
tinguished from endowed and tuition-fee uni- 
versities. In a State university the president 
needs the capacity to present persuasively and 
vigorously to a legislature the case of the uni- 
versity as an institution which repays many- 
fold, and with extraordinary promptness, every 
appropriation which the legislature makes for 
it, especially when the appropriations are lib- 
eral. To such ends the president of a State 
university ought to know how to use the pub- 
lic press, the granges, the popular lecture, and 
the teachers' institutes as means of awakening 
and diffusing popular interest in the univer- 
sity as a whole. With the help of the most 
far-sighted deans and professors in the several 
departments, the president of a State univer- 
sity ought to prepare to meet future needs 
of the population which the university chiefly 
serves, and to meet every appropriate demand 
for the services of the university as soon as 
the demand is appreciable. Every new service, 
or demand for service, should be made the 
ground of an application to the legislature 



232 THE PRESIDENT 

for additional resources. The president should 
seize every opportunity to give a demonstra- 
tion that the university has made a direct con- 
tribution to the welfare of the State, the pros- 
perity of its industries or manufactures, the 
success of its schools, or the influence of the 
learned and scientific professions within its 
borders. He must know how to appeal to State 
pride, in order to increase the resources of his 
university. 

The president of an endowed university is 
rarely called upon to guide the thoughts or 
influence the action of legislative bodies. 
Occasionally he may have to defend the 
exemption of educational institutions from 
taxation, or to support projects for the im- 
provement of public secondary schools, or of 
normal schools; but in general his methods 
of adding to the resources of his university 
are different from those of the president of a 
tax-supported university. 

The head of a denominational institution 
of learning must necessarily appeal to denom- 
inational zeal in general, and in particular to 



PROCURING BENEFACTIONS 233 

the denominational organizations which main- 
tain interest in the educational institutions of 
their denomination, and provide a large part 
of their resources. In an institution which has 
no denominational af&liations, the president 
will be exempt from the necessity of keep- 
ing such affiliations close and warm, but of 
course cannot draw upon any denominational 
treasuries. 

The popular imagination attributes to the 
presidents of endowed universities a habit of 
soliciting contributions from very rich men, 
rich childless men, and sick rich men and 
women ; and the correspondence of rich men 
would doubtless supply evidence that some 
presidents of endowed institutions make such 
apphcations. There are also cases in which 
prosperous business men who, as presidents 
of endowed universities, become greatly inter- 
ested in the success of their institutions, ask 
their prosperous business friends and associ- 
ates to join them in making up an annual 
deficit, erecting a new building, or completing 
a new endowment. In the older and richer 



234 THE PRESIDENT 

universities, which have the steady support of 
a large body of grateful Alumni, the president 
need not engage in personal solicitation of 
gifts to his university. There are more effec- 
tive methods in use, to which the president 
should contribute to the best of his ability. 
Thus, he should secure complete publicity in 
regard to the financial situation of his uni- 
versity; its annual receipts and expenditures, 
the gifts annually received, — whether for 
funding or for immediate use, — and its most 
pressing pecuniary needs, should all be pub- 
lished. Secondly, publicity should be given 
to the fact that the university scrupulously 
respects in theory and in practice the wishes 
of all givers, and makes the beneficent ac- 
tion of every endowment perpetual, so far as 
human prudence and fidelity can go. Thirdly, 
the president should see to it that all the in- 
come of the university is used appropriately 
and frugally, so that there shall be no mis- 
directed expenditure and no waste. Any com- 
petent president will be watchful against the 
increase of administrative and equipment ex- 



THE INDUCEMENT TO BENEFACTIONS 235 

penditures at the expense of salaries for teach- 
ers, — that is, he will be on his guard against 
mounting expenditures for management and 
materials as against expenditures for direct 
teaching. 

Finally, the president of an endowed uni- 
versity, thinking to increase its resources, will 
try to let the educated public know what the 
product of his university is in trained men 
able to render conspicuous service as authors, 
men of science, members of the learned and 
scientific professions, bankers, managers of 
corporations, and public servants. This pro- 
duct will be independent of State limits, and, 
indeed, of national boundaries. Realization 
of the service a strong university renders to 
the country, and to mankind, is the great 
inducement to educational benefactions ; and 
it is therefore an important function of the 
president of any endowed institution to see 
that the means and opportunities of that real- 
ization are supplied. 

In any university. State or endowed, the 
president's most constant duty is that of su- 



236 THE PRESIDENT 

pervision. The statutory definition of his 
functions should leave no doubt as to the 
universality and comprehensiveness of his su- 
pervision. In this regard it would be difficult 
to improve on the Harvard statute on the 
president which prescribes, near the end of 
the statute, that it is the duty of the presi- 
dent — ^^to direct the official correspondence 
of the University; to acquaint himself with 
the state, interests, and wants of the whole 
institution, and to exercise a general superin- 
tendence over all its concerns." Under that 
statute no question ever arises whether it is 
the business of the president to do this or 
that, or to concern himself with this or that 
part or aspect of the university. 

The president's judgment should be brought 
to bear on every question of promotion within 
the permanent staff, and on every selection 
for an appointment without limit of time, or 
for a lono^ term. He should of course consult 
the most appropriate advisers within and 
without the university on every appointment ; 
but his own mind should be brought to bear 



PRESIDING AT FACULTY MEETINGS 237 

on every important selection. The president 
who delegates these selections, or takes little 
interest in them, is in all probability neglect- 
ing the greater for some lesser function. He 
is spending his strength on less important 
matters, and neglecting the duty on the right 
discharge of which the future of the univer- 
sity chiefly depends. 

Presiding at all faculty meetings is an im- 
portant part of the duty of the president of 
a well-governed university, whether tax-sup- 
ported or endowed. He there has opportunity 
to learn the personal qualities of many mem- 
bers of each faculty, and to estimate their 
judgment and their public spirit. He also has 
opportunity to form his own opinions as to 
the feasibility of desirable changes, and as to 
the means of advancing projects which are 
promising but not yet ripe. He should be 
better acquainted than most members of any 
faculty with the prevailing discussions on ed- 
ucation, sociology, and legislation, and should 
be able to give the faculties the benefits of 
his observations outside the university world. 



238 THE PRESIDENT 

He needs thorough acquaintance with the 
schools which underlie the colleges and uni- 
versities, with the changing conditions of the 
professions which the university feeds, and 
with the alterations in the national indus- 
tries and habits which cause, or should cause, 
the rise of new professions. 

The president of a university should never 
exercise an autocratic or one-man power. He 
should be often an inventing and animating 
force, and often a leader; but not a ruler or 
autocrat. His success will be due more to 
powers of exposition and persuasion combined 
with persistent industry, than to any force of 
will or habit of command. Indeed, one-man 
power is always objectionable in a university, 
whether lodged in president, secretary of the 
trustees, dean, or head of department. In 
order to make progress of a durable sort, the 
president will have to possess his soul in pa- 
tience; and on that account a long tenure will 
be an advantage to him and to the university 
he serves. 

Inasmuch as it is the object of the university 



THE PRESIDENT'S EXAMPLE 239 

to send out into the multifarious occupations 
of civilized society a steady stream of well- 
trained young men who mean to make them- 
selves useful, it is well for the president of the 
university to make himself useful in some field 
of public service, without as well as within 
the university. He will thus set an example 
which will be more influential than personal 
exhortation with the youth who pass within 
the range of his influence. 

Thirty-nine years ago, a young man who 
had been president of a university for five 
months made at his inauguration the follow- 
ing remarks, among others, about the quality 
and function of a president : — 

" The President should be able to discern 
the practical essence of complicated and long- 
drawn discussions. He must often pick out 
that promising part of theory which ought to 
be tested by experiment, and must decide how 
many of things desirable are also attainable, 
and what one of many projects is ripest for 
execution. He must watch and look before : 
watch, to seize opportunities to get money, to 



240 THE PRESIDENT'S FUNCTIONS 

secure eminent teachers and scholars, and to 
influence public opinion toward the advance- 
ment of learning; and look before, to antici- 
pate the due effect on the University of the 
fluctuations of public opinion on educational 
problems, of the progress of the institutions 
which feed the University, of the changing 
conditions of the professions which the Uni- 
versity supplies, of the rise of new professions, 
of the gradual alteration of social and religious 
habits in the community. The University 
must accommodate itself promptly to signifi- 
cant changes in the character of the people 
for whom it exists. The institutions of higher 
education in any nation are always a faithful 
mirror in which are sharply reflected the na- 
tional history and character. In this mobile 
nation the action and reaction between the 
University and society at large are more sen- 
sitive and rapid than in stiffer communities. 
The President, therefore, must not need to 
see a house built before he can comprehend 
the plan of it. He can profit by a wide inter- 
course with all sorts of men, and by every 



DEANS 241 

real discussion on education, legislation, and 
sociology." 

After thirty-nine years of experience in the 
same office he finds the above description correct. 

A fully organized university contains an 
undergraduate and a graduate department of 
arts and sciences, and four or more profes- 
sional schools; and in many universities each 
of the two departments in arts and sciences is 
divided into two parts, — one of arts and pure 
sciences, and the other of applied science. At 
the head of each department a dean is ordi- 
narily placed, who is its chief administrative 
officer. In most cases he is also a professor 
and an active teacher, who gives part of his 
time to administrative work. The office is 
comparatively new in American universities. 
Forty years ago, there was only one dean in 
Harvard University, — the dean of the medical 
faculty. There are now four deans connected 
with the Harvard faculty of arts and sciences, 
and five other deans in the professional schools 
of the University; and similar administrative 



242 THE FUNCTIONS OF A DEAN 

dispositions are made by many American uni- 
versities. 

The functions of a dean relate almost exclu- 
sively to his own department of the university ; 
but within that department they are compre- 
hensive. He is the chief adviser of the presi- 
dent concerning the instruction given in his 
school, and is responsible for the preparation 
and orderly conduct of its faculty business, 
and for the discipline of its students. In the 
undergraduate departments much of his time 
is given to intercourse with students who need 
advice or pecuniary aid, or who neglect their 
opportunities, or become dangerous to their 
associates. For the younger professors and 
inexperienced teachers in his department, the 
dean is a counsellor and friend. In most uni- 
versities deans are selected from among the 
members of the faculty, and they hold of&ce 
without limit of time. They may best be per- 
sons who are capable of working cordially 
with the president, although their functions 
are in many respects independent of him. 
Much of the work of a dean is done in con- 



QUALITIES OF A GOOD DEAN 243 

formity with rules laid down by a faculty, or 
with well-understood, predetermined policies 
of the university, and it is only on matters 
for the settlement of which he finds no such 
guidance, or on new pecuniary problems, or 
on difficult cases, that a dean will ordinarily 
consult the president. 

It is obvious that for the discharge of these 
functions a dean needs good judgment, quick 
insight, patience, and a strong liking for help- 
ful, sympathetic intercourse with young men. 
The men who are most successful in the 
work of a dean are neither dry nor gushing, 
neither rude nor soft; they are alert, atten- 
tive, sympathetic, and hopeful. In conducting 
the business of his office a dean needs the 
usual qualities of a good administrative officer, 
namely, thoroughness in inquiry, promptness 
and clearness in decision, and assiduity. In 
manner and address he ought to be frank, 
considerate, and cordial. He ought to inspire 
confidence and win regard, and be capable 
of exerting a good influence without visible 
effort, and without self-consciousness. 



244 WORK OF A DEAN 

In a large department, containing many 
students, the work of a dean makes a serious 
demand upon a conscientious man whose 
feelings are quick ; so that deans are often 
compelled to retire from service in consequence 
of the incessant drain on their sympathies, and 
the exhausting nature of parts of their work. 
One of the most trying parts is the inter- 
course with anxious, dissatisfied, or unintelli- 
gent parents. On the other hand, there is no 
part of university work which brings to the 
faithful worker a stronger sense of being use- 
ful, or more durable satisfactions. His per- 
sonal contacts with young men are numerous 
and intimate. He often knows that he has 
done good to people in anxiety or trouble, 
and as the years go by he experiences many 
of the legitimate rewards of bringing help at 
critical moments in other people's lives. 

It is generally a dean that in the course of 
years brings to pass real improvements in col- 
lege manners and customs through personal 
influence on successive generations of stu- 
dents. To produce such effects he needs a 



SECRETARIES 245 

good many years of continuous service, dur- 
ing which his ameliorating influence gradu- 
ally takes effect on the young men in his 
charge. That institution is fortunate which 
can command the services of the right kind 
of men in its deanships ; and the president of 
a university has no more important duty than 
that of nominating with all possible care the 
deans of the several departments. 

The president and the deans alike need 
assistance which is by no means of a clerical 
nature, and hence in a large university there 
will be a considerable number of graduates of 
the institution who serve as secretaries, and 
are charged with administrative work which 
requires acquaintance with the university and 
with its teachers, officers, societies, clubs, and 
cooperative organizations. Each governing 
board and each faculty has its secretary, and 
in a large institution the president may have 
in his office two or three highly educated men 
who conduct the larger part of his corre- 
spondence, prepare his business for the board 
of trustees, communicate with persons who 



246 THE SECRETARY OF A FACULTY 

have business with him and make appoint- 
ments for them, collect information, and look 
after the official publications of the university. 
These duties are often of a confidential char- 
acter, requiring discretion and quickness in 
action, and a robust loyalty to the institution. 
The dean of a large department requires also 
a good deal of clerical assistance ; because the 
records of the students under his charge as 
regards their attendance, and the grades which 
they attain at examinations or for written 
work, must be kept with accuracy. The stu- 
dents' records kept in a dean's office are not 
only indispensable while the students are mem- 
bers of the university, but are also in many 
cases useful in after years; although the 
record of each individual is held to be confi- 
dential, there are many proper uses to which 
they can be put by request of relatives, friends, 
or biographers. 

The function of the secretary of a faculty 
is by no means unimportant. The history of a 
university may best be read in the records of 
its board of trustees and its faculties ; for the 



UNIVERSITY PUBLICATIONS 247 

main steps of its progress are there recorded. 
The secretary of a faculty, like an administra- 
tion secretary, needs a capacity to grasp quickly 
the thoughts of other people and reduce them 
to clear and precise written form. A secretary 
who can pick the kernel out of a good deal 
of discursive chaff, or express concisely the re- 
sult of an involved debate, will be likely to 
make himself very useful. If he can do those 
things, and is fair and diligent, he may be a 
quiet man of infrequent speech, and yet have 
a strong influence for good. If he possesses 
also some gift of speech and some charm of 
style, and a strong memory, his serviceable- 
ness will be greatly enhanced. 

Every vigorous university issues in these 
days a large number of periodical publica- 
tions, including catalogues, reports, and an- 
nouncements, and also a considerable number 
of literary and scientific publications such as 
annals or memoirs of observatories and muse- 
ums, theses or essays produced by the teach- 
ers and graduate students of the university, 



248 THE APPOINTMENTS OFFICE 

contributions from the various laboratories, 
syllabuses of lectures and laboratory courses, 
so-called studies in classics, history, and eco- 
nomics, and collections of examination papers. 
These various publications are issued in a 
steady stream throughout the year, and a com- 
petent agent must be employed to superintend 
the work of printing and issuing them. This 
work needs to be done with accuracy and effi- 
ciency ; it affects every teacher and student in 
the university, and many of its future mem- 
bers. Since all the strong American universi- 
ties have undertaken a great deal of new work 
within the last twenty years, it is necessary to 
bring this new work to the knowledge of gradu- 
ates, teachers, parents, and pupils at school. 
The distribution of this information must be 
as wide as the country ; for the stronger univer- 
sities are now resorted to from many parts of 
the United States, or indeed, from all parts. 

In years still recent, several American uni- 
versities have adopted a piece of administra- 
tive work which Harvard University, first 
among American institutions, copied in part 



FOR GRADUATES AND UNDERGRADUATES 249 

from Oxford University, namely, an office 
through which members of the university, who 
need to support themselves wholly or in part, 
may obtain appropriate employment, and grad- 
uates of the university ready for service may 
obtain employment appropriate to the educa- 
tion they have received. In England the work 
of a university appointments bureau is chiefly 
devoted to procuring places for young gradu- 
ates as teachers, civil servants, journalists, 
secretaries, or corporation officers; but in 
America a wider range of employment for 
graduates has been sought. At Oxford and 
Cambridge, again, there are very few under- 
graduates who need to earn their living while 
in college ; whereas in American universities a 
considerable proportion of all the undergrad- 
uates must be self-supporting, or must earn a 
part of their expenses. In the larger Ameri- 
can universities the work of the secretarv for 
appointments is growing, and likely to grow, 
as the managers of large producing or distrib- 
uting industries realize more and more the 
value of highly trained young men, and the 



250 DIRECTORS OF LABORATORIES 

extreme difficulty, in these days of applied 
science and minute division of labor, of bring- 
ing up competent managers from the ranks. 

In a university in which are maintained 
dormitories, dining-halls, and a cooperative 
society for supplying the articles which stu- 
dents inevitably need, — such as clothing, 
books, stationery, furniture, athletic supplies, 
instruments, and sporting goods, — two or 
three administrative officers, presumably con- 
nected with the treasurer's department, must 
give attention to these matters, and particu- 
larly must assist the students in their conduct 
of cooperative undertakings, like dining-halls 
and cooperative stores. Their work will be 
partly administrative and partly accounting. 

The directors of laboratories, libraries, and 
museums have an important part in the ad- 
ministrative work of a modern university. In 
their accounting they need assistance from the 
treasury department. Each director of a labo- 
ratory, library, or scientific establishment can 
employ to advantage one or more assistants in 
the routine business of the establishment 3 but 



LIBRARIANS AND MUSEUM DIRECTORS 251 

lie ought to possess himself the usual admin- 
istrative faculties. Every laboratory, observa- 
tory, or museum is in some sense a workshop, 
and the head of it ought to know how to con- 
duct a workshop in an orderly, economical, 
and efficient way. Inasmuch as students are to 
be trained in laboratory work to the careful 
and precise use of their senses, and to the 
procuring of the most favorable conditions 
for every experiment, every laboratory should 
be tidy and clean. Every library and museum 
should exhibit the most careful housekeeping, 
being kept as free as possible from dust, in- 
sects, crumbs, and accumulations of rubbish, 
not only in the show-rooms, but in the work- 
rooms and the receiving-rooms. Librarians and 
museum directors should keep clearly in mind 
definite policies concerning the relation of the 
bulk of their collections to their working- 
rooms, their exhibition-rooms, and their spaces 
for storage. The collecting forces of a library 
or scientific establishment are apt to outrun 
the spaces for exhibition and the resources for 
utilization. In such cases the director may be 



252 OBJECT OF UNIVERSITY COLLECTIONS ^ 

working for some future generation, or avail- 
ing himself of fleeting opportunities for col- 
lecting ; but he is not doing his best for the 
passing generation. In a university intended 
for the instruction of each generation as it 
passes, there are limits to the accumulation of 
material v^^hich soon loses its interest for living 
men and passes into the domain of history. 
Collections of hand and machine tools and of 
machinery, which for a few years may have 
illustrated actual industries, soon lose all in- 
terest except for students of the history of the 
trades to which they belong ; yet they occupy 
much space, and must be maintained in fair 
condition. Thousands of books in every gener- 
ation fall into a similar category. They have 
been replaced by better books, and have no 
interest except for students of the history of 
an art or an idea. 

A university which proposes to be an effec- 
tive teaching implement for each new gen- 
eration must be careful how it undertakes 
to maintain great museums in many fields of 
knowledge. It should prefer museums of mod- 



COLLECTIONS SHOULD BE LIMITED 253 

erate size which contain only a few specimens 
of each type, and those often replaced. Its 
collections should be always thought of as 
teaching materials, partly for elementary stu- 
dents, partly for advanced students, and partly 
for the public at large. The buildings should 
not be conceived of as indefinitely extensi- 
ble ; but as having fixed limits, the contents 
to be made choicer and more instructive by 
exclusion and selection in each succeeding 
generation. 

This rule must be applied to books, if a 
library is to be kept an effective treasure-house 
for living men. The directors of collections, 
whether of books, specimens, or records, need 
to study constantly the relative expenditures 
for collecting and for utilization. Utilization 
should keep up with collection ; and due pro- 
portion should be observed between the cost 
of collection and the cost of utilization, else 
the passing generation will not get its share 
of the fruition. There is also danger that if 
utilization lags behind collection, much of the 
cost of collecting will be lost. 



254 BREADTH OF UNIVERSITY WORK 

Any one who makes himself familiar with 
all the branches of university administration 
in its numerous departments of teaching, in 
its financial and maintenance departments, its 
museums, laboratories, and libraries, in its ex- 
tensive grounds and numerous buildings for 
very various purposes, and in its social organ- 
ization, will realize that the institution is 
properly named the university. It touches all 
human interests, is concerned with the past, 
the present, and the future, ranges through 
the whole history of letters, sciences, arts, and 
professions, and aspires to teach all system- 
atized knowledge. More and more, as time 
goes on, and individual and social wealth ac- 
cumulates, it will find itself realizing its ideal 
of yesterday, though still pursuing eagerly its 
ideal for to-morrow. 



INDEX 



INDEX 



A. B., degree of, significance of, 

165. 

A. M., degree of, 41, 167. 

Academic distinctions, 118. 

Academic freedom, 27, 110. 

Accounts, publication of, 18. 

Address lists of Alumni, 70, 75. 

Administrative boards under 
faculties, 105. 

Administrative officers, 228 ; 
age, 103 ; duties, 30 ; salaries, 
15. 

Admission requirements, 31, 
108. 

Advanced study scanty before 
Civil War, 152. 

Advertising, 78. 

Advisers of students, 148. 

Age of administrative officers 
and professors, 13, 103. 

Agriculture, faculty of, 81. 

Alumni, address lists, 70 ; anni- 
versary celebrations, 67 ; geo- 
graphical distribution, 70 ; in- 
fluence on undergraduates, 
114; information distributed 
among, 70 ; organizations, 65, 
69 ; local clubs, 72 ; of profes- 
sional schools, 69 ; secretary, 
72 ; photograph albums of, 68 ; 
publications, 77 ; as trustees, 
27 ; representation in trustees, 
45, 48, 49 ; their success in life, 
235 ; vital statistics, 67. 

Annual appointments, 93, 95, 
101, 127. 



Applied biology, 85. 

Applied science, faculty of, 81, 

85 ; relations with faculty of 

arts and sciences, 85 ; private 

practice of teachers, S6. 
Appointments, 7 ; confirmation 

of, 50; nominations for, 111; 

president's relation to, 236 ; of 

teachers, 90, 112. 
Appointments offices, 76, 248. 
Appropriations from legislature, 

29. 
Architects, employment of, 24. 
Arts and sciences, faculty of, 81, 

82 ; relations with faculty of 

divinity, 84. 
Assistant professors as members 

of faculty, 87 ; salary of, 13. 
Assistants, training of, 185. 
Associated Harvard Clubs, 74. 
Associations of students, 220. 
Athletics, fields for, 22. 
Attendance at college exercises, 

175. 

Bachelor of Arts, degree of, sig- 
nificance of, 165. 

Bachelor of Philosophy, degree 
of, 166. 

Bachelor of Science, degree of 
166. 

Bachelor's degree for admission 
to professional schools, 170. 

Biology, applied, 85. 

"Birds of a feather" in social 
life, 223. 



258 



INDEX 



Board, 20. See also Dinin^-halls. 

Board of Overseers. See Over- 
seers. 

Breeding in and in, danger of, 
90. 

Brooks, Phillips, 62. 

Brown University, corporation 
of, 44. 

Building plans for the future, 25. 

Buildings, designs for, 23. 

California, University of 19. 

Cambridge, University of, 8, 
249. 

Campus, 23. 

Carnegie Foundation, 6, 16, 100, 
104. 

Case method of teaching law, 
178, 199; in subjects other 
than law, 203. 

Catalogue of graduates, 75. 

Chapel, attendance at, 61. 

Chicago, University of, publica- 
tions, 77. 

Choice of studies, guidance in, 
149. 

Class organization of Alumni, 65. 

Clinical professorships, 96. 

Clubs of Alunmi in different lo- 
calities, 72. 

Clubs, students', 220. 

Collectivistic motives, 227. 

College, its relation to profes- 
sional schools, 40. 

College records, 118. 

" College spirit," 225. 

Commencement, Alumni gather- 
ings at, 71. 

Committees of faculty, 109 ; of 
governing boards, 6; named 
by president, 230. 

Common-rooms, 217. 



Competition of endowed with 
State institutions, 16. 

Conferences of teachers and ad- 
vanced students, 212. 

Conferences to test and help 
students' work, 143, 183. 

Connecticut, Collegiate School 
of, 45. 

Consenting bodies, 44; see In- 
specting bodies ; Overseers. 

Constitutional law, 84. 

Cooperative societies, 20, 250. 

Coaptation of trustees, 47. 

Cost of living, for students, 20. 

Culture, changed ideals of, 43. 

Dartmouth College, charter of, 
44. 

Deans, 30, 105, 241 ; " one-man 
power" of, 121, 238. 

Degrees, 118 ; requirements for, 
31, 106. 

Denaocracy in social life, 224. 

Denominational institutions, 
functions of president in, 232. 

Denominational instruction, 84. 

Denominations, control by, 47. 

Departmental buildings, 129. 

Departmental organization of 
instruction, 58, 82, 101, 108, 
110, 124, 125, 126. 

Departments, relation of fac- 
ulty to, 128 ; nomination of 
annual appointments by, 128. 

Differences among colleges, 226. 

Dining-halls, 20, 219. 

Directors of laboratories, libra- 
ries, and museums, 250. 

Discipline, 105, 114, 144. 

Divinity, faculty of, relations 
with faculty of arts and sci- 
ences, 84. 



INDEX 



259 



Doctor of Philosophy, degree of, 

41, 167. 
Doctor of Science, degree of, 

167. 
Dormitories, 20, 217. 

Easy courses, 136, 159. 

Elective system, 131 ; object of, 
134; in Harvard College 
started by Board of Overseers, 
58 ; a system, not a " bazaar, " 
131 ; order and sequence of 
courses, 132 ; limitations of 
choice, 133, 147 ; time-table of 
courses, 133 ; unwise combina- 
tions of courses, 133 ; easy, 
"soft," or "snap" courses, 
136, 159; avoidance of early 
morning and late afternoon 
courses, 136 ; as used by idle 
students, 136 ; value of, for 
lowest students, 137 ; value 
of, for late-developing minds, 
138 ; graduate study pro- 
moted by, 140 ; in Harvard 
College, 140 ; mixture of older 
and younger students, 139, 
141 ; social effects of, 142 ; 
responsibility of individual 
student promoted by, 142 ; 
examinations, 143 ; idleness 
not induced by, 143 ; induce- 
ments to strenuous study, 144 ; 
minimum of work larger than 
under prescribed system, 144 ; 
moral objects, of, 144 ; free- 
dom of election consistent 
■with strictness of require- 
ments of study, 145 ; com- 
pared with prescribed course, 
145 ; in professional schools, 
147 ; advisers of students, 148 ; 



honors requirements, 149 • 
grouping of courses, 149; 
group system, 161, 227; spe- 
cialization forced by group 
system, 164 ; stimulating to 
scholarship of teachers, 150; 
teaching profession affected 
by, 150 ; works well under 
proper administrative meth- 
ods, 153 ; in Harvard Uni- 
versity, 153 ; concentration 
of work in the direction of 
highest capacity, 154 ; con- 
centration not carried too 
far by undergraduates, 155 ; 
actual choices of courses are 
usually wise, 155 ; coherence 
of studies chosen, 156 ; pro- 
fessional career, courses lead- 
ing toward, 159; length of 
elective course, 167 ; Fresh- 
man and Sophomore years, 
prescribed courses in, 167 ; 
two years of free election not 
enough, 168; courses open to 
Freshmen, 168 ; professional 
studies, foundation for, 170; 
pecuniary resources affect de- 
velopment of, 171 ; liberal 
study under, 165 ; promotion 
of intercourse between teach- 
ers and students, 164. 

Employment bureaus, 76, 248. 

Endowed institutions, advantage 
of, 1 ; dependent on gifts, 17 ; 
function of president in, 232 ; 
competition with State insti- 
tutions, 16. 

Endowments, 28. 

Engineering, faculty of, 81. 

Enrolment of students, 79. 

Epidemics, 22. 



260 



INDEX 



Etiquette of relations between 
trustees and faculties, 107. 

Examinations, inspection o£, 52, 
53 ; oral, 189 ; use of, in lec- 
ture courses, 182 ; written, 
206. 

Exemption from taxation, 19, 
232. 

Expense of instruction, ques- 
tions affecting-, properly re- 
ferred to trustees, 107. 

Expenses of students, 20. 

Faculty, the, 81 ; functions of, 
104, 119 ; age of members, 87, 
88, 89, 101 ; committees, how 
constituted, 123 ; committee 
on instruction, 109 ; deans, 
30, 105, 241; delegation of 
functions by, 105 ; delegation 
of functions to, 31 ; depart- 
mental subdivision of, 58, 82, 
108, 124, 125, 126; depart- 
ments, function of, in selecting' 
teachers, 101 ; in-breeding-, 
90 ; interference with teach- 
ers' methods, 110 ; meetings, 
frequency of , 119; meetings, 
value of, 121 ; meetings, presi- 
dent to preside at, 237 ; mem- 
bership in, 87 ; membership 
in more than one, 85 ; mem- 
bership of, changes rapidly, 
100 ; minority in, their proper 
behavior toward trustees, 32, 
107 ; nomination of teachers 
by. 111 ; pecuniary bearing of 
questions considered by, 106 ; 
powers of, defined by trustees, 
30, 31 ; recruiting, ways of, 
93 ; relations with the public, 
117 ; secretary, 105, 246; size 



of, 124 ; trustees, relations to, 
107 ; vitality, inventiveness, 
and enterprise essential, 121 ; 
young men in, 87, 88, 89. 

Faculty, of agriculture, 81 ; ap- 
plied science, 81, 85; applied 
science, relations with fac- 
ulty of arts and sciences, 85 ; 
arts and sciences, 81, 82 ; di- 
vinity, 81, 84; engineering, 
81, 85 ; fine arts, 81 ; law, 
81, 83 ; medicine, 81, 84 ; how 
recruited, 96 : nomination of 
teachers, 113 ; theology, 81, 
84. 

Fees. See Tuition fees. 

Fellowships, 16. 

Finance, deficits, 30 ; surpluses, 
29 ; president's concern with, 
230. 

Finance committee, 7. 

Financial matters affected by 
faculty action, 106. 

Fine arts, faculty of, 81. 

Fraternities, 221. 

Freedom of teachers. See Aca- 
demic freedom. 

Freshman year, prescribed 
courses in, 167. 

Freshmen, courses open to, 
168. 

Funds, care of, 60 ; investment 
in specific securities undesira- 
ble, 10 ; see Investments. 

" General " investments, 10, 60. 

Geographical distribution of 
Alumni, 70, 

Gifts, 17 ; acceptance of, 27 ; 
from Alumni classes, 66 ; soli- 
citation of, 233. 

Gordon, George A., 62. 



INDEX 



261 



Governing boards, concurrent 
powers of, 48 ; matters prop- 
erly referred to the, by fac- 
ulties, 106 ; see Trustees ; 
Regents. 

Governor a trustee, 45 ; appoint- 
ment of regents by, 46. 

Graduate Schools of Arts and 
Sciences, 41. 

Graduate study, scanty in Amer- 
ica before Civil War, 152 ; re- 
lation of elective systena to, 
140. 

Graduates, ^ee Alumni. 

Grounds and buildings, care of, 
23 ; open to public, 22. 

Group system, 161, 164, 227. 

Grouping of courses, 149. 

Hale, Edward Everett, 62. 

Harvard Bulletin, 77. 

Harvard Clubs, 74. 

Harvard Graduates' Magazine, 
77. 

Harvard Law School, ease meth- 
od, 199. 

Harvard Medical School, 179. 

Harvard Union, 220. 

Harvard University, Alumni as- 
sociation, 71 ; Alumni repre- 
sentation, 49 ; appointments, 
50 ; Appointments Office, 76 ; 
Chapel, attendance at, 61 ; 
charter, 6 ; deans, 241 ; de- 
gree of A. B., its significance, 
166 ; examinations, 206 ; Fac- 
ulty, functions of, 104 ; gifts 
from Alumni, 66; governing 
board, 5 ; Graduate School of 
Arts and Sciences, 140; hon- 
orary scholarships, 215 ; hon- 
ors, requirements in, 149 , 



Overseers, 49 ; Overseers, gifts 
from or promoted by, 53; 
Overseers' influence on Corpo- 
ration, 50 ; Overseers' meet- 
ings, 51 ; Overseers, restric- 
tion of residence within the 
State removed, 51 ; Overseers, 
usefulness of, 64 ; preachers to 
the University, 62 ; President 
and Fellows, 5 ; President's 
functions, 236, 239 ; religious 
exercises, attendance at, 61 ; 
visiting committees, number 
of, 55 ; voluntary attendance 
at Chapel, 61. 

Health of students, 22. 

Heating and ventilating, 22. 

Honorary scholarships, 215. 

Honors, requirements for, a 
guide in choice of studies, 
149. 

Hospitals, 22 ; relation to medi- 
cal faculty, 96. 

Hours per week of university 
exercises, 109. 

Illinois, University of, 19. 

In-breeding in faculties, 90. 

Income, insurance of, by " gen- 
eral " investments, 10 ; should 
be spent, 29 ; distribution of, 
60. 

Individual instruction, 172. 

Individualistic motives, 226. 

Industries, service rendered to, 
19. 

Infirmaries, 22. 

Inspecting bodies, 44, 48 ; bene- 
ficial influence on trustees, 
50 ; checking and stimulating 
influence of, 64 ; constructive 
influence of, 57 ; needs of 



262 



INDEX 



university inquired into, 54 ; 
publication of reports, 52 ; 
residence of members, 51 ; 
meetings, 51 ; qualification of 
members, 63 ; visiting com- 
mittees, 52, 53. 

Instruction, committee on, 109 ; 
departmental organization of, 
58 ; inspection of, 52, 53 ; 
methods of, 174. 

Instructors, qualifications of, 90, 
93, 112; members of faculty, 
87; responsibility of, 110; 
salary, 12 ; selection of, 90, 
93, 112 ; tenure, 13, 32 ; their 
■work open to criticisms of 
faculty, 110. 

International law, 84. 

Investigation, as a qualification 
for teachers, 93. 

Investments, 7, 8 ; care of, 60 ; 
funds should not be limited 
to specific investments, 10 ; 
"general," 10, 60; mort- 
gages, 8 ; public utilities com- 
panies, 8 ; railroad securities, 
9 , " special," 10 ; variety de- 
sirable, 8, 9. 

Johns Hopkins University, pub- 
lications, 77. 
Jurisprudence, 84. 

Kansas, University of, 19. 

Laboratories, directors of, 250. 

Laboratory manuals, 189, 191. 

Laboratory notes, 190. 

Laboratory principles in sub- 
jects not scientific, 194. 

Laboratory work, 186; danger 
of, 191 ; problems, 193. 



Langdell, C. C, 199. 

Lantern-slide illustrations, 175. 

Law as a field of arts and sci- 
ences, 84 ; case method of 
teaching, 199. 

Law, faculty of, 81, 83 ; in 
Europe, 83 ; lecture method 
of teaching, 178; private 
practice of teachers of, 86. 

Learned societies, 92, 151. 

Lecture courses, as method of in- 
struction, 174, 178; use of ex- 
aminations in, 183 ; use of 
section work and conferences 
in, 183. 

Lectures, public, 21, 118; by 
invited experts, 128. 

Legislature , appropriations from, 
29. 

Liberal study, 165 ; definition 
of, 166. 

Librarians, 250. 

Libraries, administration of, 36. 

Lieutenant-Governor a trustee, 
45. 

' ' Line of least resistance ' ' aa 
applied to elective system, 
138. 

Living, cost of, for students, 20. 

Lodgings, 20. 

Luxurious living, 223. 

McKenzie, Alexander, 62. 
Maintenance, relative cost of, 11. 
Marriage of teachers, 13, 102. 
Master of Arts, degree of, 41, 

167. 
Master of Science, degree of, 

167. 
Medical education, 84. 
Medical examination, 22. 
Medical inspection, 22. 



INDEX 



263 



Medicine, ease method of teach- 
ing-, 204; lecture method in 
teaching, 179 ; observation 
work in study of, 179 ; private 
practice of teachers of, 86. 

Medicine, faculty of, 81, 84; 
clinical professors, 96 ; a de- 
partment of applied biology, 
85 ; nominations of teachers, 
113 ; relations with faculty of 
arts and sciences, 85 ; rela- 
tions with hospitals, 96 ; how 
recruited, 95. 

Methodist denomination, ap- 
pointment of trustees by, 47. 

Methods of instruction, 174; 
lectures, 174, 178; object of, 
176; recitations, 174, 176. 

Michigan, University of, 19 ; re- 
gents, 45 ; constitutional pro- 
vision for, 45. 

Minnesota, University of, 19. 

Missouri, University of, 19. 

Money questions afPected by 
faculty action, 106. 

Montague, Richard, 62. 

Municipality, relation to, 19, 21. 

Museums, 21, 36, 251. 

Needs of the University, in- 
quiry into by Overseers, 54. 
Note-taking, 189, 190. 
Number of students, 79. 

" One-man power " undesirable 
in universities or f acultiss, 121, 
238. 

Oral examination, 189. 

Original investigation as a quali- 
fication for teachers, 93. 

Outside work by university 
teachers, 86. 



Overseers, Board of, 48, 49; 
checking and stimulating in- 
fluence of, 51, 64; number of 
meetings, 51 ; publication of 
committee reports, 52 ; quali- 
fications of members, 63; 
visiting committees, 52, 53. 

Oxford, University of, 8, 249. 

Pensions. See Retiring allow- 
ances. 

Periodicals published by Alum- 
ni, 77. 

Ph B., degree of, 166. 

Ph. D., degree of, 41, 167. 

Photograph albums of Alumni, 
68. 

Play-grounds, 22. 

Poor men in college, 33, 76, 
214, 249. 

Popular lectures, 118. 

Preachers to the University, 
62. 

Prescribed course, compared 
with elective, 145; in Fresh- 
man and Sophomore years, 
167. 

Prescribed reading, 180. 

President, the presiding officer 
of each faculty, 123, 237 ; an- 
nual report of, 58; appoint- 
ments and promotions weighed 
by, 236 ; functions of, 30, 228 ; 
a member of Board of Over- 
seers, 49 ; " One-man power," 
121, 238 ; autocratic power not 
desirable in, 238 ; the presid- 
ing officer of trustees and facul- 
ties, 229, 237 ; tenure of, 238. 

Preventive medicine, 23, 84. 

Private employment of univer- 
sity teachers, 86. 



264 



INDEX 



Probationary tenure, 93, 95, 102. 

Profession, courses in college as 
foundation for, 147, 159. 

Professional schools, admission 
to, 40, 41, 42, 170 ; Alumni 
organizations, 69 ; Bachelor's 
degree for admission to, 170 ; 
elective system limited in, 146. 

Professional studies not less cul- 
tivating than college studies, 
43 ; relation of college studies 
to, 170. 

Professors, age of, 13, 103; as 
members of faculty, 87 ; nom- 
inated by faculty, 111 ; qual- 
ifications of, 90, 93, 112; 
recruited from other institu- 
tions, 95; responsibility of, 
110; salary, 13; selection of , 
90, 93, 112; tenure, 13, 32; 
work open to criticism of fac- 
ulty, 110. 

Property, management of, 7. 

Prudential committees, 6. 

Public lectures, 21, 118. 

Public opinion, representation 
of, in inspecting body, 48. 

Public service rendered by uni- 
versity teachers, 117. 

Publication of reports, 59. 

Publications, 77, 129, 247; en- 
dowment for, 78 ; of Alumni, 
77. 

Publicity, need of, 18 ; of ac- 
counts, 18, 234; in corporate 
management, 65. 

Quiz, the, 177, 183, 189, 193. 

Railroad securities for invest- 
ments, 9. 
Reading, prescribed, 180. 



Real estate investments, 8. 

Recitation courses, limit of size, 
177. 

Recitations, 174, 176. 

Records of student work, 118 ; 
their preservation, 119. 

Regents, ex-officio members, 3 ; 
president of university a mem- 
ber ex-ofi&cio, 46 ; secretary, 
47 ; number, 1, 3 ; tenure, 1, 
5, 46 ; see also Trustees. 

Religious denominations, con- 
trol by, 47. 

Religious exercises, attendance 
at, 61. 

Religious toleration, 27. 

Reports, annual, of president 
and treasurer, 59. 

Research courses, 210. 

" Reserved books " for refer- 
ence in college courses, 181. 

Retiring allowances, 7, 15, 33, 
100, 104. 

Rich men in college, 214, 215. 

Roads, contribution toward cost 
of, 22. 

Roman law, 84. 

S. B., degree of, 166. 

S. D., degree of, 167. 

S. M., degree of, 167. 

Salaries, 99 ; fixed by trustees, 
7 ; of administrative officers, 
15 ; relative appropriation for, 
compared with other expenses, 
11 ; scale of, 12. 

Scholarships, 16. 

Science. See Applied science. 

Scientific collections, 251. 

Secretaries, 245. 

Secretary of faculty, 105 ; of 
regents or trustees, 47. 



INDEX 



265 



Sectarian instruction, 84. 

Section work in lecture courses, 
183. 

Seminaries, 210. 

Senators as trustees, 45. 

Seniority as the basis of se- 
lecting department chairmen, 
126. 

Sewers, contribution toward 
cost of, 22. 

Sickness, loss of time from study 
through, 23 J provisions for, 
22. 

Smithsonian Institution trus- 
tees, 6. 

"Snap" courses, 136,159. 

Social conditions, 219. 

Social effects of elective system, 
142. 

Societies, 220. 

Socratic method, 201. 

"Soff'courses, 136, 159. 

Sophomore year, prescribed 
courses in, 167. 

Sororities, 223. 

Source-books, 205. 

" Special " investments, 10. 

Specialists, societies of, 151. 

Specialization compelled by 
group system, 164. 

State universities, faculty in, 
117 ; function of president in, 
231; competition with en- 
dowed institutions, 16. 

Statutes, 30. 

Student clubs, 220. 

Students, number of, 79 ; health 
of, 22. 

Summer instruction, 118, 195. 

Superintendent of instruction a 
regent ex-officio, 46. 

Surpluses of income, 29. 



Tabular view of courses, time- 
table, 133. 

Taxation, exemption from, 19, 
232. 

Teacher's career, inducements 
for entering, 99. 

Teachers, qualifications of, 90, 
93, 112; tenure of, 32. 

Teaching profession affected 
by elective system, 150. 

Tenure of office, 32. 

Term-time, 33. 

Testimonials, unreliability of, 
91. 

Text-books, 174. 

Theological education, 84. 

Theology, faculty of, 81, 84. 

Thesis, 196. 

Time-table of courses, 133. 

Town and gown, interests of, 
19. 

Treasurer, functions of, 7 ; an- 
nual statement of, 59 ; invest- 
ments cared for by, 7. 

Trustees, access to, by individ- 
ual members of faculty, 107 ; 
selection of, 1, 26 ; qualifica- 
tions of, 1, 39; age, 1, 4; 
Alumni as, 27 ; appointments 
by, 7 ; appointments made by, 
with advice of departments, 
102 ; class influence in choice 
of, 1 ; considerate attitude 
toward teachers, 37, 38; edu- 
cational policy, 7; executive 
committees, 6 ; ex-officio 
members, 3, 45 ; faculty ac- 
tion that is wisely referred to, 
106; faculties, relations to, 
7, 31, 37, 38, 106 ; functions, 6 ; 
influence of Overseers, or in- 
specting body, on, 50 ; num- 



266 



INDEX 



ber, 1, 3, 44, 48 ; political in- 
fluence in choice of, 1 ; powers, 
44 ; property management, 7 ; 
prudential committees, 6 ; sec- 
retary of, 245 ; separate boards 
for special objects, 60 ; tenure, 
1, 5, 46 ; vacancies, how filled, 
47. 

Trusts, fidelity to, 17. 

Tuition fees, 16. 

University, significance of the 
term, 40, 41, 42, 254; com- 
pared with college, 52. 

University career, inducements 
for entering, 99. 

Unmarried teachers, 102. 

Vacations, 33. 



Ventilation, 22. 

Visiting committees, 52, 53 ; in 
institutions having one gov- 
erning board, 57 ; number at 
Harvard, 55. 

Vital statistics of graduates, 67. 

Voluntary attendance at 
Chapel, 61. 

Water-supply, 22. 

Weekly exercises, normal num- 
ber of, 109. 

Work of students, amount of, 
fixed by faculty, 109. 

Written examinations, 206. 

Written work in college 
courses, 174. 

Yale University charter, 45. 



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